[extropy-chat] Rocket Diamonds

[Adrian Tymes]

Hmm.  A rather complex description, though.  Does it
boil down to this?

"Rockets are optimized for operation in space (i.e.,
in vacuum), so their exhaust has a lower pressure than
the atmosphere near the ground.  This would prevent
exhaust from escaping the engine, except that the
exhaust is going supersonic.  So it escapes, but is
compressed (see point A in the diagram) - and
overcompressed as it travels away from the engine (see
point 3 in the diagram), so it eventually expands
again (see point 5), then gets re-overcompressed, and
so forth.  The exhaust gets brighter at the points of
maximum compression (it's hot enough to glow anyway,
and there's more of it in a smaller volume at those
points).  Eventually, the exhaust loses its kinetic
energy to the atmosphere, causing the line of bright
points to break up."

--- Hara Ra <harara at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Here is an excellent page with MUCH better pictures:
> 
> http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aerojava/rocket3.htm
> 
> 
> BTW these patterns also are seen in rocket exhausts.
> 
> >I had a professor in college who worked on the
> problem
> >of Prandtl-Meyer flow, which is used to explain why
> >the exhaust plumes of jet engines display the
> characteristic
> >diamond patterns when the pilot gets hard on the
> gas:
> >spike
> >
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