Can anybody enlighten me on shockwaves?

Question

preferbly in layman terms that is easily understood, and please state suitable websites for references. Thanks

Answer 1

Shock waves can occur in any fluid (air, water, etc....) the are radial in nature and caused by a compression of the fluid.

Perhaps the biggest and best example is a nuclear detonation. At the origin you have an powerful explosion which compresses the air immediately around the the origin point. The compressed air is going to expand radially, in three dimensions, from the origin. Any object in the path of this expanding shock wave will be impacted by the force of the wave over it entire surface. In the case of a nuclear explosion this shock wave is lethal for quite a distance and can level structures with an impressive radius.

Eventually the energy will be dissipated since the total sum of the energy is spread over the surface of a sphere it can dissipate quite rapidly as the radius expands.

Because air has high compressibility the effect of the shock wave doesn't transmit efficiently in water due to it's resistance to compressive forces the shock wave will conserve more energy and travel farther, as in Tsunamis.