Shock Structure and Relaxation in the Multi-Component Mixture of Euler Fluids

Abstract

The shock structure problem is studied for a multi-component mixture of Euler fluids described by the hyperbolic system of balance laws. The model is developed in the framework of extended thermodynamics. Thanks to the equivalence with the kinetic theory approach, phenomenological coefficients are computed from the linearized weak form of the collision operator. Shock structure is analyzed for a three-component mixture of polyatomic gases, and for various combinations of parameters of the model (Mach number, equilibrium concentrations and molecular mass ratios). The analysis revealed that three-component mixtures possess distinguishing features different from the binary ones, and that certain behavior may be attributed to polyatomic structure of the constituents. The multi-temperature model is compared with a single-temperature one, and the difference between the mean temperatures of the mixture are computed. Mechanical and thermal relaxation times are computed along the shock profiles, and revealed that the thermal ones are smaller in the case discussed in this study.