SPEED OF SOUND UNDERWATER SKIN

This would reduce the journey time for a transatlantic underwater cruise to less than an hour, and for a transpacific journey to about 100 minutes, according to a report by California Institute of Technology in 2001. In theory, a supercavitating vessel could reach the speed of sound underwater, or about 5,800km/h.

SPEED OF SOUND UNDERWATER SKIN

Stronger shocks mean larger increases in stagnation temperature, so as the flow on the skin of the vehicle slows to zero, it heats up to a temperature known as the adiabatic wall temperature (slightly lower than stagnation temperature do to the isentropic process of a shock wave).The new idea is based on Soviet technology developed during the cold war.Ĭalled supercavitation, it envelopes a submerged vessel inside an air bubble to avoid problems caused by water drag.Ī Soviet supercavitation torpedo called Shakval was able to reach a speed of 370km/h or more - much faster than any other conventional torpedoes. The main thing that happens is that as you get faster, the strength of the shock increases. Just to clarify, most heating on supersonic vehicles is NOT due to friction directly. Additionally, since I (and who knows if anyone does) don't know how or if a shock would manifest itself underwater, I am not sure how that heating would really work. The problem is, it would be very difficult to verify experimentally. The water would cool the surface significantly better than air does, but the increased viscosity would give rise to more friction, so it would be hard to predict without doing some sort of supersonic analysis on water. One last thing, due to the friction being so great on aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound, and thus becoming extremely hot, would the submarine become extremely hot from the friction of water? Would the water cool down the submarine at the same time? Would the submarine become more brittle? (quenching haha)

Or, (my favourite theory), would there be a big explosion underwater? A shockwave perhaps?

Does this link to the theory of water becoming denser from the condensation previously mentioned? submarine and water wall traveling at same velocity). If this submarine were to go so fast, that the water doesn’t have time to disperse, would it be like this submarine trying to constantly penetrate a brick wall from a “standstill” (i.e. For example belly flopping from a great height), it would be like hitting concrete because the water doesn’t have enough time to disperse. When diving into water from a great height with nothing to really pierce the water (i.e. When an aircraft breaks the sound barrier, and Prandtl–Glauert singularity occurs, would the same rule apply for underwater? Would the water that this submarine is traveling through, condense the water further? Would it become denser? Going along the assumption that due to Air and Water both being Fluids, they then behave in similar ways. I know it may not even be mechanically possible to reach the speed of sound underwater (1,484 m/s) but this is just a theory.Īfter discussing with several people, what would happen if a submarine was to break the sound barrier underwater, a couple of interesting theories arose.

Speed of sound underwater