What happens when plane exceeds the speed of sound? and What is the interpretation of the conical shape that appears behind the plane?
Answer
The shock wave from a supersonic object is a cone composed of overlapping spherical wavefronts. As individual wavefronts form, they propagates radially outward at speed $c$ (speed of sound) and have a radius $ct$. At the same time the object traveling at speed $v$ moves forward $vt$. The angle of the vertex of the of the shock wave is known as the Mach angle and is given by:
$$\sin(\theta) = c/v$$
No comments:
Post a Comment