A Fluid-Mechanical Formulation of the Problem of Thermomechanical Instability in Energetic Media.

Thermomechanical instabilities in reactive media are examined first from a thermodynamic viewpoint, where certain ranges of temperature, pressure or density are considered unstable which can be arrived at from the second law of thermodynamics and assumptions about the way heat is released into the fluid. It is then shown that this criterion for instability can be derived from the hydrodynamic equations, and that a substance which satisfies the criterion will amplify a sound wave as the sound wave propagates through the substance. Author