Propagation Problems

Abstract

In this investigation the propagation process in gases will be discussed exclusively, though many of the results could be extended to similar processes in fluids and solids. This wave propagation in gases at first will be treated in the context of acoustics, where a number of solutions have already been provided by Lord Rayleigh [1] which have applications in aerodynamics today. In the last decade, the important branches of steady supersonic aerodynamics and the aerodynamics of unsteady phenomena have been added; on the one hand, the flutter at supersonic speeds and, on the other, the phenomena due to accelerating or decelerating flying bodies. To this field and closely related to acoustics also belongs the gas dynamics of explosions in the free atmosphere as well as the processes in motor exhaust pipes, control theory and many others.

Reproduced from the special lecture delivered by the author at the scientific annual conference of Gamm (Vienna, April 1965) on the invitation of the executive committee of the conference.

Translated by R. Ravindran from K. Oswatitsch, „Ausbreitungsprobleme“, Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (ZAMM), 45 (1965), 485 498.