Copyright © 2013 Hongjun Cheng. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of delta shock waves for a hyperbolic system of conservation laws of Keyfitz-Kranzer type with two linearly degenerate characteristics. The Riemann problem is solved constructively. The Riemann solutions include exactly two kinds. One consists of two (or just one) contact discontinuities, while the other contains a delta shock wave. Under suitable generalized Rankine-Hugoniot relation and entropy condition, the existence and uniqueness of delta shock solution are established. These analytical results match well the numerical ones. Finally, two kinds of interactions of elementary waves are discussed.