Flying At Speeds of Mach 17 Could One Day Be Possible With This New Propulsion System

The UCF-developed propulsion system might allow for flight To reach speeds of Mach 6 to 17 (beyond 7,403 to 20,921 kilometers per hour) and have air and space travel applications.

University of Central Florida scientists are improving their technology that might one day lead the way for hypersonic flight, such as traveling from New York to Los Angeles in under half an hour.

In their most recent study released in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists found a method to stabilize the detonation required for hypersonic propulsion by producing a specific hypersonic reaction chamber for jet engines.

Kareem Ahmed, study co-author and associate professor in UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, says that there is an intense international effort to create robust propulsion systems for hypersonic and supersonic flight; this would enable flight through our atmosphere at extremely high speeds and additionally permit a more efficient entry and departure from planetary atmospheres. Kareem Ahmed continued by saying that the discovery of stabilizing a detonation– one of the most effective types of extreme reaction and energy release– has the potential to transform hypersonic propulsion and energy systems.

The system could allow for air travel at speeds of Mach 6 to 17, which is over 7,403 to 20,921 kilometers per hour. The technology takes advantage of the power of an oblique detonation wave, which they developed by utilizing an angled ramp inside the reaction chamber to produce a detonation-inducing shock wave for propulsion.

Unlike revolving detonation waves that rotate, oblique detonation waves are stationary and stabilized.

The technology enhances jet propulsion engine performance to produce more power while utilizing less fuel than conventional propulsion engines, therefore lightening the fuel load and decreasing expenses and emissions.

Along with faster flight, the technology could additionally be utilized in rockets for space missions, reducing the rocket’s weight by needing less fuel, traveling farther, and burning more cleanly.

Detonation propulsion systems have been researched for over half a century yet have not been successful as a result of the chemical propellants utilized or the methods they were mixed. Previous work by Ahmed’s team conquered this issue by very carefully stabilizing the rate at which the propellants hydrogen and oxygen were released into the engine to produce the initial experimental proof of a rotating detonation.

Having said that, the brief duration of the detonation, typically taking place for just milliseconds, makes them challenging to study and impractical for use.

On the other hand, in the new study, the UCF scientists had the ability to maintain the length of a detonation wave for three seconds by producing a new hypersonic reaction chamber, referred to as a hypersonic high-enthalpy reaction, or HyperREACT, facility. The facility consists of a chamber with a 30-degree angle ramp near the propellent blending chamber that stabilizes the oblique detonation wave.

Ahmed says this is the first time a detonation has actually been revealed to be stabilized experimentally. Ahmed continued by saying that the team is ultimately able to hold the detonation in space in oblique detonation form. It’s practically like freezing an extreme explosion in physical space.

Gabriel Goodwin, an aerospace engineer with the Naval Research Laboratory’s Naval Center for Space Technology and study co-author, states that their research assists in addressing a lot of the essential concerns surrounding oblique detonation wave engines.

Goodwin’s function in the study was to make use of the Naval Research Laboratory’s computational fluid dynamics codes to simulate the experiments conducted by Ahmed’s team.

Goodwin stated that studies such as this are essential to progressing the understanding of these intricate phenomena and bringing us closer to creating engineering-scale systems.

Goodwin mentions that the work is interesting and drives the limits of both simulation and experiment, sharing that he is honored to be a part of the project.

The research’s lead author is Daniel Rosato ’19 ’20MS, a graduate research assistant and a recipient of UCF’s Presidential Doctoral Fellowship.

Rosato has been working with the project since he was an aerospace engineering undergraduate student and is in charge of experiment design, manufacture, and operation, in addition to data analysis, with support from Mason Thorton, a study co-author, and an undergraduate research assistant.

Rosato says the following actions for the research are the inclusion of new diagnostics and measurement devices to acquire a deeper understanding of the phenomena they are studying.

As said by Rosato, afterward, the team will certainly proceed to explore more experimental arrangements to identify in more detail the requirements with which an oblique detonation wave can be stabilized.

If successful in advancing this technology, the scientists claim that detonation-based hypersonic propulsion could be incorporated right into human atmospheric and space travel in the coming ten years.

Originally published by scitechdaily.com. Read the original article.

Reference: “Stabilized detonation for hypersonic propulsion” by Daniel A. Rosato, Mason Thornton, Jonathan Sosa, Christian Bachman, Gabriel B. Goodwin and Kareem A. Ahmed, 10 May 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102244118