Celebrating the physics of all that flows
Supersonic commercial travel was briefly possible in the twentieth century when the Concorde flew. But the window-rattling sonic boom of that aircraft made governments restrict supersonic travel over land. Now Keep reading
WASP-127b is a hot Jupiter-type exoplanet located about 520 light-years from us. A new study of the planet’s atmosphere reveals a supersonic jet stream whipping around its equatorial region at Keep reading
Before the Concorde even began regular flights, protests over its sound levels caused the U.S. and many other countries to ban overland commercial supersonic flight. Those restrictions have stood for Keep reading
Years ago as I sat on a plane taxiing at Heathrow, I caught a glimpse of a Concorde out on the tarmac. My classmates couldn’t understand why I was so Keep reading
How do you test a supersonic car like the Bloodhound SSC in a wind tunnel? With free-flying objects like airplanes, wind tunnel testing is relatively straightforward. Mounting a stationary model in Keep reading
This 1960 photo shows three men standing inside Arnold Engineering Development Complex’s 16-ft supersonic wind tunnel facility. The wind tunnel was capable of Mach numbers between 1.60 and 4.75 through Keep reading
The forces on an object in flight come from the distribution of pressure on the surface. To alter an object’s trajectory, one has to shift the pressure distribution. On subsonic Keep reading
This image shows oil-flow visualization of a cylindrical roughness element on a flat plate in supersonic flow. The flow direction is from left to right. In this technique, a thin layer Keep reading
Supercomputing has been an enormous boon to fluid dynamics over the past few decades. Many problems, like the interaction between a supersonic shock wave and a bubble, are too complicated Keep reading