Some remarks on the structure of compressible potential flow in connection with the hodograph transformation for plane flow

Abstract

The considerations given in this paper try in fact to give arguments in favor of the point of view, that limit line singularities are of fundamental importance for the construction of flow fields of a compressible potential flow. This statement thus opposes the more familiar view, that the occurence of a limit line in a compressible flow causes this flow to be physically impossible and therefore of less interest. It is, on the contrary, the purpose of the present paper to bring forward the conjecture, that a compressible potential flow can only exist through the introduction of limit line singularities. The paper tries to transfer to compressible potential flow theory the point of view familiar in classical hydrodynamics, that a solution can be thought to be determined by its singularities.