In recent years, aerodynamics and thermodynamics have found common ground in the specialised field of gas dynamics. Developments in this subject have led to a much more complete and widespread knowledge of subsonic, sonic and supersonic flow of gases in the conventional type of convergent-divergent nozzle. When the back pressure is raised above the value against which the nozzle is designed to discharge, oblique and then normal shock waves are set up in the divergent cone at a position along the nozzle axis determined by the magnitude of that back pressure. The gas which has crossed the shock wave is subjected to a process of subsonic compression.

In this paper a theoretical investigation is made of the changes in pressure, temperature, density and Mach number which occur across a normal shock wave, when the position of the wave varies along the nozzle axis. The investigation illustrates the effect of change of medium, for which the relevant property is the ratio of specific heats. This ratio for certain polyatomic gases may approach unity (e.g. for Dichlorodifluoromethane CCl2F2, in gaseous form, γ=1·06), and for the inert monatomic gases γ= 1·667. The analysis is made non-dimensional by expressing such quantities as gas pressure, temperature, and density at any given position along the nozzle axis relative to the values of the particular parameter at entry to the convergent section.