Numerical model of sonic boom in 3D kinematic turbulence

Sonic boom is one of the key issues to be considered in the development of future supersonic or hypersonic civil aircraft concepts. The classical sonic boom, typical for Concorde with an N-wave shape and a ground amplitude of the order of 100 Pa, prevents overland flight. Future concepts target carefully shaped sonic booms with low amplitude weak shocks. However, sonic boom when perceived at the ground level is influenced not only by the aircraft characteristics, but also by atmospheric propagation. In particular, the effect of atmospheric turbulence on sonic boom propagation near the ground is not well characterized. Flight tests performed as early as the 1960s demonstrated that classical sonic booms are sensitive to atmospheric turbulence. However, this sensitivity remains only partially understood. This is related to the fact that i) turbulence is a random process that requires a statistical approach, ii) standard methods used to predict sonic booms, mainly geometrical acoustics based on ray tracing, a...