Eur. Phys. J. AP 17, 233-241 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap:2002017

Monte Carlo simulation of nearly kinematic shock fronts in rarefied gases

Dipartimento di Chimica dell'Universita' and Centro di Studio per la Chimica dei Plasmi del CNR, Via Orabona 4, 70126 Bari, Italy

Corresponding author: cscpdb30@area.ba.cnr.it

Received: 18 May 2001
Revised: 10 October 2001
Accepted: 6 December 2001
Published online: 15 March 2002

Abstract

The effect of inter particle collisions on a “kinematic” shock wave produced by a velocity gradient in a cold atomic gas is studied, to the end of establishing a connection between such kinematic shocks and the “traditional” fluid dynamic shock front. In order to include the collisional effects we use both a DSMC (Direct Simulation Monte Carlo) model and a Monte Carlo solution of the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook equation (BGK/MC). The substantial agreement of DSMC and BGK/MC results for a sufficiently high value of the collision frequency proves that the kinematic and thermodynamic descriptions of the shock front can be smoothly joined by scaling this parameter.