UNLIMITED CUMULATION UNDER ONE-DIMENSIONAL UNSTEADY COMPRESSION OF ANIDEAL-GAS

Various methods of unlimited cumulation (UC) of an ideal (inviscid and non-heat-conducting) gas subject to one-dimensional unsteady compress ion by a plane, cylindrical, or spherical piston are considered. The m ost perfect method, namely, UC with isentropic compression from rest t o rest, which is referred to as ''ideal'' (IUC), is compared with thre e other methods of UC, which correspond to well-known self-similar sol utions of one-dimensional gas compression. The most effective of these is UC with a reflected shock wave, behind which the compressed gas is homogeneous and at rest, as in IUC. The efficiency of various methods of UC is estimated by the ratio of the work done during compression t o the work in the case of IUC, the ratio of the internal energy to the total energy of the compressed gas, and the degree of gas homogeneity with respect to the Lagrangian variable. Computations of these charac teristics are carried out for a perfect gas with various adiabatic exp onents. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.