Weak waves in dusty gas

Using the characteristic coordinate system, a unified analysis has been carried out for the decay of plane, cylindrical and spherical weak waves in a gas-particle system. A general decay law has been presented for a system undergoing an arbitrary number of relaxation processes. For each geometry of the weak wave considered, the decay term exhibits a simple additive character and the ratio of decay factors for a non-steady and steady weak wave is independent of the nonequilibrium effects.