Thermodynamics and one dimensional shock waves in materials with memory

Abstract

We consider one dimensional shock waves in materials which do not conduct heat. We show that most of the classical theory of Hugoniot curves can be broadly generalized to substances having long range, non-linear, viscoelastic memory. For example, the presence of memory does not destroy the conclusion that the jump in entropy across a shock wave of small intensity is of order three or higher in the jump in the strain. The theorems of Bethe and Weyl on shocks of arbitrary intensity also can be generalized to materials with memory.