Can sonic boom be avoided/reduced?

Question

It really sucks to think about that maybe we will never have commercial aircrafts to fly across any point on Earth at the speed of over Mach 1 because of sonic booms.

I am wandering is there any way that sonic booms can be reduced or avoided?

O yes, of course flying to space can reduce sonic boom 'cause there is no air.
But in order to get into orbit, don't you need to first achieve the escape velocity? That still produces a huge amount of sound energy I suppose?

And also, wouldn't re-entry produce sonic boom as well?

Answer 1

Good question. I think it may be possible in principle to eliminate the sonic boom, and reduce it greatly in practice. The sonic boom is a shock wave caused by the plane's surface pushing on (in front) and/or pulling away from (in rear) the surrounding air at a speed greater than the speed of sound. Neglecting the laminar boundary layer, if an air craft was shaped like a lens and came to a sharp edge front and rear with a half-angle cotangent greater than the mach number, the *normal component* of the velocity of the air sliding past the plane's surface would be less than the sound speed. I'm pretty sure that will avoid a shock wave.

Qualitatively, the idea is to slice through the air like a double edged sword that's sharp and thin enough that the air isn't shocked.

Answer 2

You cannot get rid of a sonic boom, that's like getting rid of gravity. If you're high enough sonic booms are not a problem, and if you fly into space, there is no sonic boom because there is no medium for the waves to propagate in. If you increase the speed of sound, by increasing temperature of the medium for example, you change the speed at which you will cause a sonic boom.

Answer 3

Slow down below 650 mph. Then we won't hear any sonic boom below 650mph. That the speed of sounds. If we can put a muffer on the jet plane, that might help a bit. It would only slow down the plane's speed.

Answer 4

Only in a perfect vacuum aka Space.