Fascinating world of shock waves

This article introduces the reader to the exhilarating world of Shock Waves. With their unique ability to enhance the pressure and temperature instantaneously in any medium of propagation, shock waves are now being used for many innovative applications in the industry. The origin of shock waves, their characteristics, laboratory tools used in their study, along with a few interesting industrial applications of shock waves developed at the Indian Institute of Science are described. G Jagadeesh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, IISc, Bangalore. His areas of interest include hypersonic flows, biomedical and industrial applications of shock waves. He has five international patents on various discoveries on industrial applications of shock waves.