Shock waves propagation under the influence of magnetic field

The propagation of plane and cylindrical shock waves in a perfectly conducting ideal gas in presence of transverse magnetic field is studied for a point explosion. The density ahead of the shock front is assumed to vary as a power of the distance from the source of explosion. The plasma is assumed to be an ideal gas with infinite electrical conductivity permeated by a transverse magnetic field. Following Sakurai [1, 2], the first approximate exact solutions are obtained by expanding the variables in the form of power series in (C/U)2, where C is the speed of sound in undisturbed medium of the flow. Numerical description of the flow field has been presented in an ideal magnetogasdynamics. The results obtained are compared with the numerical solutions obtained by Sakurai in the absence of magnetic field. Also, the effect of magnetic field on flow variables such as density, velocity, pressure and magnetic pressure behind the wave front is illustrated through figures. It is very interesting in particular that exact analytical solutions are obtained for this problem.