Predicting transmission of shaped sonic booms into a residential house structure

Abstract

Human perception of sonic booms is a major impediment to commercial supersonic flight. Shaping, which reduces the audible shock waves of a boom, can make outdoor perception of booms acceptable. Perception of sonic booms experienced indoors is of concern, and it is not yet established whether shaped booms offer benefit to indoor listeners. A better understanding of the transmission of shaped booms into building structures is needed. In the authors' earlier work the vibration response of house elements subjected to different sonic boom wave shapes was evaluated using a single degree of freedom model. This paper expands that approach with a modal analysis model. The acceleration of building elements and the resulting sound pressure inside a room are computed in the time and frequency domains. Analytical results are compared with experimental data measured by NASA during sonic boom tests conducted at Edwards Air Force Base in 2007. The effects of wave signature parameters on transmission are studied to evaluate the advantages of various kinds of minimized boom shapes.