The thermodynamic state of the hot gas behind reflected shock waves: Implication to chemical kinetics

Procedures are discussed to correct for nonideality in a shock tube used in the reflected mode in conjunction with flash photolysis and atomic resonance absorption to measure chemical kinetics of atoms at high temperatures. Experimentally, pressure time profiles for the incident and reflectedshock regions are made close to the location of the observation windows through which absorbance is measured. The corresponding temperatures are calculated from the adiabatic equation of state. Justification for this procedure is provided by extending Mirels' boundary layer theory to take intoaccount interaction of the reflected wave with the flowing gas in the free stream and in the boundary layer. These theoretical methods are described for calculating the thermodynamic and hydrodynamic states behind the reflected wave from initial values of pressure and temperature and the measured velocity of the incident wave. The implication of these results to kinetic measurements at high temperature is discussed.