A Numerical Method for Predicting the Pressure History of a Sonic Boom Wave Incident on Arbitrarily Oriented Plane Walls

Abstract

The conservation laws for a plane fluid flow were simplified by the weak wave approximations valid for sonic boom-type waves and applied to a field of mesh points, utilizing the “artificial viscosity” concept for numerical stability. The numerical analysis was applied to predict the pressure history of the sonic boom wave on the window of a commercial store building in Oklahoma City which was broken during a sonic boom test in 1964. The results were compared with the results of a two-dimensional analytical method which was developed earlier by the authors and which rests on firm physical and mathematical foundations. Agreement was very good. The numerical method is not limited to plane cases but should be capable of extension to three-dimensional transient wave problems.