Fluid Flow & Aerodynamics
why things fly, and why the usual explanation is wrong
Series

Mach reflection — the series

One essay so far on this idea, and more questions about it than one essay answers.
  1. The two ways a shock can meet a wall. Left: the incident shock from the wedge reaches the wall and a second shock turns the flow back parallel to it, meeting at a point. Right: at a larger wedge angle no reflected shock can turn the flow that far, and the intersection lifts off the wall into a triple point with a nearly normal Mach stem standing on the surface and a slip line trailing downstream. The two configurations are drawn at the angles the solver returns, with every shock angle computed rather than sketched.

    When a shock cannot bounce

    A shock reflects off a wall until the reflected shock runs out of turning, which happens at a wedge angle well below the free stream's own limit. Between the two boundaries both configurations exist, both are stable, and which one appears depends on which direction the experiment came from.

    part 1 · compressible

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