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The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, these effects were seen as constituting a barrier, making faster speeds very difficult or impossible.
By definition, at Mach 1, the local flow velocity u is equal to the speed of sound. At Mach 0.65, u is 65% of the speed of sound (subsonic), and, at Mach 1.35, u is 35% faster than the speed of sound (supersonic). An F/A-18 Hornet creating a vapor cone at transonic speed just before reaching the speed of sound. The local speed of sound, and ...
This creates a shock wave that produces a powerful form of drag known as wave drag, and gives rise to the concept of the sound barrier. The speed at which these shocks first form, critical mach, is a function of the amount of curvature. In order to reduce wave drag, wings should have the minimum curvature possible while still generating the ...
The drag-divergence Mach number (not to be confused with critical Mach number) is the Mach number at which the aerodynamic drag on an airfoil or airframe begins to increase rapidly as the Mach number continues to increase. [1] This increase can cause the drag coefficient to rise to more than ten times its low-speed value.
In 1947, Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1 (also with an unswept wing, but a much thinner one), reaching Mach 1.06 and beyond, and the sound barrier was finally broken. Early transonic military aircraft, such as the Hawker Hunter and F-86 Sabre, were designed to fly satisfactorily even at speeds greater than their critical Mach number. They did ...
For example, consider that at Mach 1.3 the angle of the Mach cone generated by the nose of the aircraft will be at an angle μ = arcsin(1/M) = 50.3° (where μ is the angle of the Mach cone, also known as Mach angle, and M is the Mach number). In this case the "perfect shape" is biased rearward; therefore, aircraft designed for lower wave drag ...
See also References External links A Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) A dedicated video bus standard introduced by INTEL enabling 3D graphics capabilities; commonly present on an AGP slot on the motherboard. (Presently a historical expansion card standard, designed for attaching a video card to a computer's motherboard (and considered high-speed at launch, one of the last off-chip parallel ...
Mach number is more useful, and most high-speed aircraft are limited to a maximum operating Mach number, also known as M MO. For example, if the M MO is Mach 0.83, then at 9,100 m (30,000 ft) where the speed of sound under standard conditions is 1,093 kilometres per hour (590 kn), the true airspeed at M MO is 906 kilometres per hour (489 kn).