373 
Reprinted from THE JourNAL oF CHemicat. Puysics, Vol. 15, No. 11, 785-794, November, 1947 
Printed in U. S. A. 
Hydrodynamic Properties of Sea Water at the Front of a Shock Wave* 
J. M. Ricuarpson** 
Baker Laboratory, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
AND 
A. B. Arons*** anp R. R. HALVERsSoN**** 
Underwater Explosives Research Laboratory, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 
(Received June 2, 1947) 
The Rankine-Hugoniot relations have been applied to appropriate equation-of-state data 
in order to calculate the propagation velocity, particle velocity, enthalpy increment, Riemann 
function, etc. at shock fronts of various amplitudes in sea water. One set of tables provides 
values over a wide pressure range (up to about 80 kilobars) and is principally intended for use 
in conjunction with theories of propagation of shock waves originated by underwater ex- 
plosions. A second set of tables contains values which are closely spaced up to pressures of 14 
kilobars. These are calculated with somewhat greater precision and are intended for use in con- 
nection with experimental measurements of particle and propagation velocities, etc. 
I. INTRODUCTION 
T has long been recognized that the velocity 
of propagation of sound waves of finite 
amplitude in a fluid medium is a function of the 
pressure in the wave. Lamb! ascribes the early 
*The work described in this report was performed 
under National Defense Research Committee Contracts 
OEMsr-121 with Cornell University and OEMsr-569 with 
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. 
** Present address: Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., 
Murray Hill, N. J. 
*** Present address: Department of Physics, Stevens 
Institute of Technology, Hoboken, N. J. 
**** Deceased. 
1H. Lamb, Hydrodynamics (Cambridge University Press, 
London, 1932) 6th Ed., p. 481. 
development of the theory to independent inves- 
tigations of Earnshaw and Riemann. Qualita- 
tively this work indicated that, since the higher 
pressure portions of a wave travel with greater 
velocity, an arbitrarily-shaped pressure pulse of 
finite amplitude must, during propagation, alter 
its shape in such a manner as to build up into a 
shock front. By applying the laws of conserva- 
tion of mass, energy, and momentum to the 
transfer of matter across the shock front, 
Rankine and Hugoniot obtained a set of three 
relations among the five variables: pressure, 
density, particle velocity (u), shock front 
