Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Supersonic speed
Summary
Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) are often referred to as hypersonic. Flights during which only some parts of the air surrounding an object, such as the ends of rotor blades, reach supersonic speeds are called transonic. This occurs typically somewhere between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.2.
Sounds are traveling vibrations in the form of pressure waves in an elastic medium. Objects move at supersonic speed when the objects move faster than the speed at which sound propagates through the medium. In gases, sound travels longitudinally at different speeds, mostly depending on the molecular mass and temperature of the gas, and pressure has little effect. Since air temperature and composition varies significantly with altitude, the speed of sound, and Mach numbers for a steadily moving object may change. In water at room temperature supersonic speed can be considered as any speed greater than 1,440 m/s (4,724 ft/s). In solids, sound waves can be polarized longitudinally or transversely and have even higher velocities.
Supersonic fracture is crack motion faster than the speed of sound in a brittle material.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the term "supersonic" was used as an adjective to describe sound whose frequency is above the range of normal human hearing. The modern term for this meaning is "ultrasonic".
Etymology: The word supersonic comes from two Latin derived words; 1) super: above and 2) sonus: sound, which together mean above sound, or faster than sound.
The tip of a bullwhip is thought to be the first object designed to break the sound barrier, resulting in the telltale "crack" (actually a small sonic boom). The wave motion travelling through the bullwhip is what makes it capable of achieving supersonic speeds. However, the first man-made supersonic boom was likely caused by a piece of cloth, spurring the whip's eventual development.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.