Laboratory Tests of Physiological‐Psychological Reactions to Sonic Booms

Seismic detection of sonic booms.

The pressure signals from a sonic boom will produce a small, but detectable, ground motion. The extensive seismic network in southern California, consisting of over 200 sites covering over 50000 square kilometers, is used to map primary and secondary sonic boom carpets. Data from the network is used to analyze three supersonic overflights in the western United States. The results are compared t...

A Laboratory Study of Subjective Annoyance Response to Sonic Booms and Aircraft Flyovers

A Laboratory Study of Subjective Annoyance Response to Sonic Booms and Aircraft

Three experiments were conducted to determine subjective equivalence of aircraft subsonic flyover noise and sonic booms. Two of the experiments were conducted in a loudspeaker-driven sonic boom simulator, and the third in a large room containing conventional loudspeakers. The sound generation system of the boom simulator had a frequency response extending to very low frequencies (about 1 Hz) wh...

A Laboratory Study of Subjective Response to Sonic Booms Measured at White Sands Missile Range

The Sonic Boom Simulator of the Langley Research Center was used to quantify subjective loudness response to boom signatures consisting of: (a) simulator reproductions of booms recently recorded at White Sands Missile Range; (b) idealized N-waves; and (c) idealized booms having intermediate shocks. The booms with intermediate shocks represented signatures derived from CFD predictions. The recor...

A Loudness Calculation Procedure Applied to Shaped Sonic Booms

The economic viability of a supersonic commercial transport airplane would be much enhanced if it could fly supersonically over land. Efforts to design an airplane to produce a minimized sonic boom at the ground require knowledge of the impact of ,sonic booms on people. Loudness, being a fundamental and well-understood characteristic of human he_zrin9, was chosen as a means of quantifying the m...