Computation of shock waves in plasma (Q904412)

A numerical method for integrating the gas dynamics equations of a multicomponent multitemperature gas on a fixed Euler grid is proposed. The method is based on an original approximate adiabatic solution of the Riemann problem. The velocities of all components with nonzero masses are assumed to be identical. Together with transport of gases with a tabulated equation of state, the code can include electron heat conduction, radiative transfer, energy exchange between the components and chemical reactions. The nonlinear heat conduction of the Shafranov solution has the remarkable property that the heat conduction wavefront propagates at a finite velocity, in contrast to the infinitely high velocity of heat propagation in linear heat conduction. The gas dynamic part is based on Godunov's scheme and an efficient Riemann solver with an approximate local equation of state.