Advanced Hypersonic Test Facilities

This report examines the implications of the proliferation of hypersonic missiles and possible measures to hinder it. This report first explores some of the potential strategic implications of the proliferation of hypersonic missile technology beyond the three major powers, the United States, Russia, and China. It then examines the process of such proliferation. And finally, it discusses possible means for hindering such proliferation.

Hypersonics is the study of flight at speeds where aerodynamic heating dominates the physics of the problem. Typically this is Mach 5 and higher. Hypersonics is an engineering science with close links to supersonics and engine design. Within this field, many of the most important results have been experimental. The principal facilities have been wind tunnels and related devices, which have produced flows with speeds up to orbital velocity. Why is it important? Hypersonics has had two major applications. The first has been to provide thermal protection during atmospheric entry. Success in this enterprise has supported ballistic-missile nose cones, has returned strategic reconnaissance photos from orbit and astronauts from the Moon, and has even dropped an instrument package into the atmosphere of Jupiter. The last of these approached Jupiter at four times the speed of a lunar mission returning to Earth. Work with re-entry has advanced rapidly because of its obvious importance. The second application has involved high-speed propulsion and has sought to develop the scramjet as an advanced airbreathing ramjet. Scramjets are built to run cool and thereby to achieve near-orbital speeds. They were important during the Strategic Defense Initiative, when a set of these engines was to power the experimental X-30 as a major new launch vehicle. This effort fell short, but the X-43A, carrying a scramjet, has recently flown at Mach 9.65 by using a rocket. Atmospheric entry today is fully mature as an engineering discipline. Still, the Jupiter experience shows that work with its applications continues to reach for new achievements. Studies of scramjets, by contrast, still seek full success, in which such engines can accelerate a vehicle without the use of rockets. Hence, there is much to do in this area as well. For instance, work with computers may soon show just how good scramjets can become. NASA SP-2007-4232

The last two decades have brought two important developments for aeroth- modynamics. One is that airbreathing hypersonic flight became the topic of technology programmes and extended system studies. The other is the emergence and maturing of the discrete numerical methods of aerodyn- ics/aerothermodynamics complementary to the ground-simulation facilities, with the parallel enormous growth of computer power. Airbreathing hypersonic flight vehicles are, in contrast to aeroassisted re-entry vehicles, drag sensitive. They have, further, highly integrated lift and propulsion systems. This means that viscous eflFects, like boundary-layer development, laminar-turbulent transition, to a certain degree also strong interaction phenomena, are much more important for such vehicles than for re-entry vehicles. This holds also for the thermal state of the surface and thermal surface effects, concerning viscous and thermo-chemical phenomena (more important for re-entry vehicles) at and near the wall. The discrete numerical methods of aerodynamics/aerothermodynamics permit now - what was twenty years ago not imaginable - the simulation of high speed flows past real flight vehicle configurations with thermo-chemical and viscous effects, the description of the latter being still handicapped by in sufficient flow-physics models. The benefits of numerical simulation for flight vehicle design are enormous: much improved aerodynamic shape definition and optimization, provision of accurate and reliable aerodynamic data, and highly accurate determination of thermal and mechanical loads. Truly mul- disciplinary design and optimization methods regarding the layout of thermal protection systems, all kinds of aero-servoelasticity problems of the airframe, et cetera, begin now to emerge.

Demand for high-speed propulsion has renewed development of the supersonic combustion ramjet engine (Scramjet engine) for hypersonic flight applications.

This report documents the activities, results, conclusions and recommendations of the Magnetohydrodynamics Accelerator Research Into Advanced Hypersonics (MARIAH) Project in which the use of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) technology is investigated for its applicability to augment hypersonic wind tunnels. The long range objective of this investigation is to advance the development of ground test facilities to support the development of hypervelocity flight vehicles. The MHD accelerator adds kinetic energy directly to the wind tunnel working fluid, thereby increasing its Mach number to hypervelocity levels. Several techniques for MHD augmentation, as well as other physical characteristics of the process are studied to enhance the overall performance of hypersonic wind tunnel design. Specific recommendations are presented to improve the effectiveness of ground test facilities. The work contained herein builds on nearly four decades of research and experimentation by the aeronautics ground test and evaluation community, both foreign and domestic. Baughman, Jack A. and Micheletti, David A. and Nelson, Gordon L. and Simmons, Gloyd A. Langley Research Center NASA/CR-97-206242-Pt-2, NAS 1.26:206242-Pt-2, MSE-029-Pt-2 DE-AC22-96EW-96405; NASA Order A-45416-D...

This proceedings present the results of the 29th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW29) which was held in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A., from July 14 to July 19, 2013. It was organized by the Wisconsin Shock Tube Laboratory, which is part of the College of Engineering of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The ISSW29 focused on the following areas: Blast Waves, Chemically Reactive Flows, Detonation and Combustion, Facilities, Flow Visualization, Hypersonic Flow, Ignition, Impact and Compaction, Industrial Applications, Magnetohydrodynamics, Medical and Biological Applications, Nozzle Flow, Numerical Methods, Plasmas, Propulsion, Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability, Shock-Boundary Layer Interaction, Shock Propagation and Reflection, Shock Vortex Interaction, Shock Waves in Condensed Matter, Shock Waves in Multiphase Flow, as well as Shock Waves in Rarefield Flow. The two Volumes contain the papers presented at the symposium and serve as a reference for the participants of the ISSW 29 and individuals interested in these fields.