Shock Diamond
Shock diamonds (also known as Mach diamonds, Mach disks, Mach rings, doughnut tails or thrust diamonds) are a formation of standing wave patterns that appears in the supersonic exhaust plume of an aerospace propulsion system, such as a supersonic jet engine, rocket, ramjet, or scramjet, when it is operated in an atmosphere. The diamonds are formed from a complex flow field and are visible due to the ignition of excess fuel. Mach diamonds (or disks) are named for Ernst Mach, the physicist who first described them.
Read more about Shock Diamond: Mechanism, Alternative Sources
Famous quotes containing the words shock and/or diamond:
“Beware the/easy griefs, that fool and fuel nothing./It is too easy to cry “AFRIKA!”/and shock thy street,/and purse thy mouth,/and go home to thy “Gunsmoke,” to/thy “Gilligan’s Island” and the NFL.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweller, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)