A Shock Wave Attached to a Pointed Obstacle in a Steady flow of a Dissociating Gas

Abstract

A pointed obstacle is assumed symmetrically placed with respect to a uniform supersonic flow ahead of it. It is assumed that an oblique shock wave attached to the leading edge of the obstacle appears form the vertex so that the flow after the shock is along the surface of the obstacle. In this paper a relation between the curvature of an attached shock wave and that of a stream line is discovered. It is concluded that in a steady flow of an ideal dissociating gas, the stream lines at the rear of a straight attached shock wave are necessarily curved lines, whereas in an ordinary gas flow only a straight line flow is possible behind a straight shock.