Reduced shock transonic airfoil

The invention concerns airfoils, such as those used in gas turbines, which operate in a transonic, or supersonic, flow regime, yet produce reduced shocks. One reason for reducing the shocks is that they produce undesirable mechanical stresses in parts of the turbine. A transonic turbine blade. Expansion waves are generated by a lifting surface on the blade. The expansion waves extend downstream, through a shock generated at the trailing edge of an adjacent blade. The invention increases the strength of the shock, thereby attenuating the expansion waves passing through the shock. One stratagem for increasing the shock is to reduce the aerodynamic load of the trailing edge generating the shock.