Limiting Temperatures of Spherical Shock Wave Implosion

Spherical shock wave implosion in argon is studied both theoretically and experimentally. It is shown that as the strength of the converging shock increases the nonideal gas effects become dominant and govern the evolution of thermal and transport gas properties limiting the shock acceleration, lowering the gas adiabatic index and the achievable energy density at the focus. Accounting for multiple-level ionization, excitation, Coulomb interaction and radiation effects, the limiting equilibrium temperatures to be achieved during the shock implosion are estimated. Focal temperatures of the order of 30 000 K are measured in experiments where converging spherical shock waves are created using a conventional gas-dynamic shock tube facility.