Mach Reflection in Steady Flow. I. Mikhail Ivanov's Contributions, II. Caltech Stability Experiments

To honor the memory of our friend and colleague Mikhail Ivanov a review of his great contributions to the understanding of the various phenomena associated with steady-flow shock wave reflection is presented. Of course, he has contributed much more widely than that, but I will restrict myself to this part of his work, because it is what I understand best. In particular, his computational and experimental demonstration of hysteresis in the transition between regular and Mach reflection, and his resolution of the difficulties associated with the triple point in weak Mach reflection in terms of the effects of viscosity and heat conduction are reviewed. Finally, some experimental results are presented that demonstrate that, in the dual-solution domain, Mach reflection is more stable than regular reflection