An aircraft travelling at 600 km/h accelerates steadily at 10 km/h per second. Taking the speed of sound as
1100 km/h at the aircraft's altitude, how long will it take to reach the 'sound barrier'?
Share
An aircraft travelling at 600 km/h accelerates steadily at 10 km/h per second. Taking the speed of sound as
1100 km/h at the aircraft's altitude, how long will it take to reach the 'sound barrier'?
Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Verified answer
Explanation:
Now this is a case of uniformly accelerated linear motion . Here all the equations of motion can be safely applied. In this particular case we should apply first equation of motion which says v = u + at or t = v _ u / a where u stands for initial velocity ( of the aircraft) , v stands for final velocity attained by the aircraft and a is the acceleration of the aircraft and t is the time needed by the aircraft to attain the final velocity from initial velocity travelling under uniformly accelerated motion .
In this case , u = 600 km / h , v = 1100 km / h and a = 10 km / h / s. Here we can directly put these data in the first equation of motion to arrive at the result ( no need to convert the velocities and acceleration to km / s to m / s ) .
Now , t = 1100 _ 600 / 10 = 500 / 10 or 50 s. Therefore the air craft will attain the final velocity or reach the speed barrier in 50 seconds .
Such types of air crafts which can attain or break the sound barrier are called supersonics.