In compressible fluid dynamics, impact pressure (dynamic pressure) is the difference between total pressure (also known as pitot pressure or stagnation pressure) and static pressure. In aerodynamics notation, this quantity is denoted as or .

When input to an airspeed indicator, impact pressure is used to provide a calibrated airspeed reading. An air data computer with inputs of pitot and static pressures is able to provide a Mach number and, if static temperature is known, true airspeed.[ citation needed ]

Some authors in the field of compressible flows use the term dynamic pressure or compressible dynamic pressure instead of impact pressure.

Isentropic flow

In isentropic flow the ratio of total pressure to static pressure is given by:

where:

is total pressure

is static pressure

is the ratio of specific heats

is the freestream Mach number


Taking to be 1.4, and since



Expressing the incompressible dynamic pressure as and expanding by the binomial series gives:


where:

is dynamic pressure


This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Impact pressure, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.