Solutions of the imploding shock problem in a medium with varying density

Abstract

We consider the solutions of the Guderley problem, consisting of an imploding strong shock wave in an ideal gas with a power law initial density profile. The self-similar solutions, and specifically the similarity exponent which determines the behavior of the accelerating shock, are studied in detail, for cylindrical and spherical symmetries and for a wide range of the adiabatic index and the spatial density exponent. We then demonstrate how the analytic solutions can be reproduced in Lagrangian hydrodynamic codes, thus demonstrating their usefulness as a code validation and verification test problem.