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Supersonic Cone Program

Supersonic Cone Application Icon

Supersonic Cone is a Java program that allows you to easily compute some of the properties related to a cone moving through air at supersonic speeds. The user needs to input any two (of three) inputs and all the other properties will be computed automatically. For example, if you know the Mach number and cone half-angle, enter those, and the conical shock angle (along with a number of other properties) will be calculated automatically. Or, you can enter the conical shock angle and the cone angle and the required free-stream Mach number will be calculated.

Technically, this program uses the technique of numerically integrating the Taylor-Maccoll Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) for supersonic flow past a semi-infinite cone as described in: Anderson, J., "Modern Compressible Flow with Historical Perspective", McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., 1990, pg. 301. A 1D root solver is used to back-solve for the input parameters to the Taylor-Maccoll equation.

My Supersonic Cone Java program is available in 3 forms. As a downloadable application set up for MacOS, as double-clickable JAR file for Windows or as a JAR file for UNIX based systems. This program and it's source code are free and covered by the General Public Licence. Some of the source code for this program is covered by the Lesser General Public Licence.

MacOS Application
(39.4 MB)

Version 1.2.4

Application that will run under MacOS. You will download a compressed disk image. Should work with MacOS 11.3 or later right out of the box (you do not need to have Java pre-installed).

Windows Application
(1 MB)

Version 1.2.4

Application that will run under MS Windows. Requires that you have a Java 11 or greater JRE or JDK installed.

UNIX Application
(1 MB)

Version 1.2.4

Application that will run on several different UNIX systems. Requires that you have a Java 11 or greater JRE or JDK installed.

Source Code
(131.4 MB)

Version 1.2.4

Full source code for the Supersonic Cone program. Includes required dependencies. Also includes the MacOS JRE bundled with the MacOS version.

Change history.

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Created: November 7, 2004 Modified: December 20, 2023

MacOS Application (39.4 MB) Version 1.2.4	Application that will run under MacOS. You will download a compressed disk image. Should work with MacOS 11.3 or later right out of the box (you do not need to have Java pre-installed).
Windows Application (1 MB) Version 1.2.4	Application that will run under MS Windows. Requires that you have a Java 11 or greater JRE or JDK installed.
UNIX Application (1 MB) Version 1.2.4	Application that will run on several different UNIX systems. Requires that you have a Java 11 or greater JRE or JDK installed.
Source Code (131.4 MB) Version 1.2.4	Full source code for the Supersonic Cone program. Includes required dependencies. Also includes the MacOS JRE bundled with the MacOS version.