ACTIVE COOLING SYSTEM DESIGN FOR HYPERSONIC PLANE

摘要

Reusable launch vehicles (RLV) are hypersonic space vehicles designed to perform multiple missions. Today attention is being focused towards reusable launch vehicles in order to reduce the cost of launches. Reusable launch vehicle has winged body and vertical tail configuration; is controlled by the aerodynamic control surfaces like elevon, rudder and body flap during its ascent and re-entry. These control surfaces are subjected to high aerodynamic heat flux during the hypersonic flight through the dense atmosphere, resulting in high temperature as well as pressure loads on the surfaces. The heat in the reusable launch vehicles is generated due to friction between the vehicle surface and the air. The heat load during ascent is 10 times greater than the re-entry. The corresponding temperatures for this high heat flux vary from 3200 to 3800 K. In order to restrict the temperature of the structural members with in their design limits, thermal protection systems (TPS) are required. There are many different types of TPS for reusable launch vehicle-sapplications. For this problem, active cooling system and passive cooling system are considered to determine the feasibility of the suitable cooling system. Regenerative cooling system is a kind of active cooling technique, where the analysis are carried out by suitable coolants namely H-2, CH4, He, Ne, N-2 and Ar. This paper deals with the destruction of heat from the control surface due to the aerodynamic heat flux by employing H-2 and CH4 as coolants. The results were correlated.