Ballistic shockwave
Definition
An N-shaped pressure wave produced when a supersonic projectile displaces air faster than the air can move out of the way. It is a Mach cone trailing behind the bullet and arrives at a receiver from a direction that points back along the bullet's flight path, not from the shooter's position.
Related terms
- Confounder
- A non-gunshot acoustic event that shares characteristics with a firearm discharge: vehicle backfire, fireworks, industrial tools, and tyre bursts are the most...
- Impact transient
- The acoustic energy released when the projectile strikes a surface. Its character depends on the target material (wood, concrete, soft tissue) and...
- Muzzle blast
- A broadband impulsive pressure wave generated when high-pressure propellant gases exit the barrel behind the projectile. It radiates roughly omnidirectionally and is...
- ShotSpotter
- A commercial urban acoustic gunshot detection and localisation network that processes impulsive events from distributed microphone arrays to estimate shooter location and...
- TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival)
- The difference in arrival time of a sound at two spatially separated receivers. Each measured TDOA constrains the sound source to lie...
Explained in
- Gunshot and Event Audio AnalysisAn N-shaped pressure wave produced when a supersonic projectile displaces air faster than the air can move out of the way. It is a Mach cone trailing behind th...