Sonic boom and infrasound emission from Concorde airliner

Jean Varnier (1) , Géraldine Ménéxiadis , Ingrid Le Griffon

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Châtillon]

Any phenomenon of an impulsive nature, such as an explosion, a gun shot or a clap of thunder, generates an infrasonic emission which is propagated at very long distance, as the atmospheric absorption has only a limited influence on it. The sonic boom of aircraft, launchers or meteorites obviously belongs to this category. During its propagation, the signal is distorted and becomes a rumble, the duration of which can reach several minutes at a distance of about one thousand kilometers. However, it is often possible to make the distinction between the emission and the natural background noise and to relate it to the sound source of origin by using goniometry and spectrum analysis. In this respect, the recordings of the sonic boom and the flight data of the “Concorde” airliner provide an interesting and complete experimental data base. Examples of exploitation of signals and of numerical simulations (sonic boom shape, direct and reverse propagation taking into account the meteorology of the day) are given for distances of 100, 300, 1000 and 3000 km.

Mots clés: SONIC BOOM; INFRASOUND; PROPAGATION; CONCORDE AIRLINER

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Jean Varnier, Géraldine Ménéxiadis, Ingrid Le Griffon. Sonic boom and infrasound emission from Concorde airliner. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00811211⟩