Nonlinear wave propagation in binary mixtures of Euler fluids

In the present paper, we study the propagation of acceleration and shock waves in a binary mixture of ideal Euler fluids, assuming that the difference between the atomic masses of the constituents is negligible. We evaluate the characteristic speeds, proving that they can be separated into two groups: one is related to the case of a single Euler fluid, provided that an average ratio of specific heats is introduced; the other is new and related to the propagation speed due to diffusion. We evaluate the critical time for sound acceleration waves and compare its value to that of a single fluid. We then study shock waves, showing that three types of shock waves appear: sonic and contact shocks, which have counterparts in the single fluid case, and the diffusive shock, which is peculiar to the mixture. We discuss the admissibility of the shock waves using the Lax-Liu conditions and the entropy growth criterion. It is proved that the sonic and the characteristic shock obey the same properties as in the single fluid case, while for the diffusive shock there exists a locally exceptional case that is determined by a particular value of the concentration of the constituents, for which the genuine nonlinearity is lost and no shocks are admissible. For other values of the unperturbed concentration, the diffusive shock is stable in a bounded interval of admissibility.Received: 15 December 2002, Accepted: 28 June 2003 Correspondence to: T. RuggeriS. Simi: On leave from the Department of Mechanics, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia