Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2006
The transient effects generated when a shock wave is suddenly disturbed by a field of cellular vortices have been studied. Both the pressure disturbance on the shock and the local shock velocity are found to be strong functions of the cell geometry. Disturbances are resolved into transient components and sinusoidal components of constant amplitude. The transients are found to die out as t−3/2, t being the interaction time, except for one particular case of the cell geometry for which they diminish as t−1/2. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that the initial magnitude of the transient components may be quite appreciable in comparison with the sinusoidal component. The theory is extended to treat the convection through the shock of a single column of vortex cells.