In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance.

When a wave moves faster than

the local speed of sound in a fluid, it is a shock wave. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate
through a medium; however, it is characterized by an abrupt, nearly discontinuous change
in pressure, temperature and density of the medium.
Shock waves can be:

 Normal: at 90° (perpendicular) to the shock medium's flow direction.

 Oblique: at an angle to the direction of flow.
 Bow: Occurs upstream of the front (bow) of a blunt object when the upstream flow velocity exceeds Mach 1.
Some other terms

 Shock Front: The boundary over which the physical conditions undergo an abrupt change because of a shock wave.
 Contact Front: in a shock wave caused by a driver gas (for example the "impact" of a high explosive on the surrounding air),
the boundary between the driver (explosive products) and the driven (air) gases. The Contact Front trails the Shock Front.

In supersonic flows
The abruptness of change in the features of the medium, that characterize shock waves, can be viewed as a phase transition: the
pressure-time diagram of a supersonic object propagating shows how the transition induced by a shock wave is analogous to
a dynamic phase transition.
When an object (or disturbance) moves faster than the information can propagate into the surrounding fluid, then the fluid near
the disturbance cannot react or "get out of the way" before the disturbance arrives. In a shock wave the properties of the fluid
(density, pressure, temperature, flow velocity, Mach number) change almost instantaneously. Measurements of the thickness of
shock waves in air have resulted in values around 200 nm (about 10−5 in),[2] which is on the same order of magnitude as the mean
free gas molecule path. In reference to the continuum, this implies the shock wave can be treated as either a line or a plane if the
flow field is two-dimensional or three-dimensional, respectively.
Shock waves are formed when a pressure front moves at supersonic speeds and pushes on the surrounding air.[3] At the region
where this occurs, sound waves travelling against the flow reach a point where they cannot travel any further upstream and the
pressure progressively builds in that region; a high pressure shock wave rapidly forms.
Shock waves are not conventional sound waves; a shock wave takes the form of a very sharp change in the gas properties. Shock
waves in air are heard as a loud "crack" or "snap" noise. Over longer distances, a shock wave can change from a nonlinear wave
into a linear wave, degenerating into a conventional sound wave as it heats the air and loses energy. The sound wave is heard as
the familiar "thud" or "thump" of a sonic boom, commonly created by the supersonic flight of aircraft.
The shock wave is one of several different ways in which a gas in a supersonic flow can be compressed. Some other methods
are isentropic compressions, including Prandtl-Meyer compressions. The method of compression of a gas results in different
temperatures and densities for a given pressure ratio which can be analytically calculated for a non-reacting gas. A shock wave
compression results in a loss of total pressure, meaning that it is a less efficient method of compressing gases for some purposes,
for instance in the intake of a scramjet. The appearance of pressure-drag on supersonic aircraft is mostly due to the effect of
shock compression on the flow.

Normal Shocks
In elementary fluid mechanics utilizing ideal gases, a shock wave is treated as a discontinuity where entropy increases over a
nearly infinitesimal region. Since no fluid flow is discontinuous, a control volume is established around the shock wave, with the
control surfaces that bound this volume parallel to the shock wave (with one surface on the pre-shock side of the fluid medium
and oáne on the post-shock side). The two surfaces are separated by a very small depth such that the shock itself is entirely
contained between them. At such control surfaces, momentum, mass flux and energy are constant; within
combustion, detonations can be modelled as heat introduction across a shock wave. It is assumed the system is adiabatic (no heat
exits or enters the system) and no work is being done. The conditions arise from these considerations.
Taking into account the established assumptions, in a system where the downstream properties are becoming subsonic: the
upstream and downstream flow properties of the fluid are considered isentropic. Since the total amount of energy within the
system is constant, the stagnation enthalpy remains constant over both regions. Though, entropy is increasing; this must be
accounted for by a drop in stagnation pressure of the downstream fluid.

NASA

As an object moves through a gas, the gas molecules are deflected around the object. If the speed of the object is much less than
the speed of sound of the gas, the density of the gas remains constant and the flow of gas can be described by conserving
momentum and energy. As the speed of the object increases towards the speed of sound, we must consider compressibility
effects on the gas. The density of the gas varies locally as the gas is compressed by the object.

For compressible flows with little or small flow turning, the flow process is reversible and the entropy is constant. The change in
flow properties are then given by the isentropic relations Isentropic means "constant entropy". But when an object moves faster
than the speed of sound, and there is an abrupt decrease in the flow area, the flow process is irreversible and the entropy
increases. Shock waves are generated. Shock waves are very small regions in the gas where the gas properties change by a large
amount. Across a shock wave, the static pressure, temperature, and gas density increases almost instantaneously. Because a
shock wave does no work, and there is no heat addition, the total enthalpy and the total temperature are constant. But because
the flow is non-isentropic, the total pressure downstream of the shock is always less than the total pressure upstream of the
shock. There is a loss of total pressure associated with a shock wave. The ratio of the total pressure is shown on the slide. Because
total pressure changes across the shock, we can not use the usual (incompressible) form of Bernoulli's equation across the shock.
The Mach number and speed of the flow also decrease across a shock wave.

If the shock wave is perpendicular to the flow direction it is called a normal shock. On this slide we have listed the equations which
describe the change in flow variables for flow across a normal shock. The equations presented here were derived by considering
the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy. for a compressible gas while ignoring viscous effects. The equations have been
further specialized for a one-dimensional flow without heat addition.

A normal shock occurs in front of a supersonic object if the flow is turned by a large amount and the shock cannot remain
attached to the body. The detached shock occurs for both wedges and cones. A normal shock is also present in most
supersonic inlets. Across the normal shock the flow changes from supersonic to subsonic conditions. Since gas turbine engines
operate under subsonic conditions, it is necessary to introduce a normal shock in the inlet compression system. Normal shocks
also are generated in shock tubes. A shock tube is a high velocity wind tunnelin which the temperature jump across the normal
shock is used to simulate the high heating environment of spacecraft re-entry.