On the Confluence of Three Shock Waves in a Perfect Gas

Abstract

The paper deals with the behaviour of three shock waves meeting at a point in a perfect gas. It is shown that the equations of motion can be reduced to a single polynomial equation of degree 10. The real roots of this equation are studied to determine their physical significance. In addition, the appearance of degenerate shock systems is shown to be associated with the formation of certain multiple roots of the polynomial equation.