OBLIQUE SHOCK WAVE

An oblique shock wave is inclined with respect to the incident

upstream flow direction. It will occur when a supersonic flow
encounters a corner that effectively turns the flow into itself and
compresses. The upstream streamlines are uniformly deflected
after the shock wave. The most common way to produce an
oblique shock wave is to place a wedge into supersonic,
compressible flow. The oblique shock wave consists of a very thin
region across which nearly discontinuous changes in the
thermodynamic properties of a gas occur. While the upstream and
downstream flow directions are unchanged across a normal
shock, they are different for flow across an oblique shock wave.

Governing eqations
The rise in pressure, density, and temperature after an oblique
shock can be calculated as follows:

M2 is solved for as
follows:

The --M equation

Using the continuity equation and the fact that the tangential
velocity component does not change across the shock,
trigonometric relations eventually lead to the --M equation
which shows as a function of M1, , and , where is the Heat
capacity ratio.

It is more intuitive to want to solve for as a function of M 1 and ,

but this approach is more complicated, the results of which are
often contained in tables or calculated through an applet

From the plot of --M

curves, the following observation can be made :
For any given M1, there is a maximum value of . Therefore, at a
given M1, if >max, then no solution is possible for a straight
oblique shock wave. In such cases, the shock will be curved and

detached,

as

shown

in

 When <max, there are two possible solutions, for each value of
and M, having two different wave angles. The large value of is
called the strong shock solution and the small value of is
referred to as the weak shock solution. For strong shock solution
the flow behind the shock becomes subsonic. For weak shock
solution the flow remains supersonic, except for a small range of
values slightly smaller than max
.

If =0, then =/2, giving rise to a normal shock, or decreases

to the limiting value , i.e. shock disappears and only Mach waves
prevails in the flow field.