Oblique Shock Waves — Lesson 3

The normal shocks we learned about in the previous lesson are a special case in which the shock wave is perpendicular to the incoming flow. In general, most shock waves that form over supersonically traveling objects are inclined with respect to the incoming flow and are called oblique shock waves.  In fact, depending on the geometry of the object, bow/detached shocks can also be formed; these stand separated from the object. In this lesson, we will generalize the theoretical framework of normal shocks and study the phenomena of oblique and detached shocks.

Here is the video lesson discussing oblique and detached shocks.

Alternate video link.

Let us now take a look at the accompanying handout slides for this lesson.