Let denote the front speed in the stationary upstream frame. In the shock frame, the upstream and downstream velocities are and . Taking in the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions for a perfect gas gives
The downstream laboratory velocity is , which distinguishes the gas speed from the front speed.
For the planar blast-wave energy scaling of a self-similar blast wave, integration of the total energy density over the shocked interval gives the energy per unit area on this side:
The similarity solution makes time-independent; a finite positive explosion energy requires . Conservation of energy therefore gives for the expanding front. Integrating from ,
If denotes the one-sided energy, . If the released energy feeds two symmetric fronts, and . In either convention the requested scaling is . The constant depends on the similarity profiles and the energy convention; energy conservation determines the exponent without solving those profiles. The Strong-shock Rankine-Hugoniot conditions additionally fix and .