Survey of Aerothermodynamics Facilities Useful for the Design of Hypersonic Vehicles Using Air-Breathing Propulsion

摘要

The dream of producing an air-breathing, hydrogen fueled, hypervelocity aircraft has been before the aerospace community for decades. However, such a craft has not yet been realized, even in an experimental form. Despite the simplicity and beauty of the concept, many formidable problems must be overcome to make this dream a reality. This paper summarizes the aero/aerothermodynamic issues that must be addressed to make the dream a reality and discusses how aerothermodynamics facilities and their modem companion, real-gas computational fluid dynamics (CFD), can help solve the problems blocking the way to realizing the dream. The approach of the paper is first to outline the concept of an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle and then discuss the nose-to-tail aerothermodynamics issues and special aerodynamic problems that arise with such a craft. Then the utility of aerothermodynamic facilities and companion CFD analysis is illustrated by reviewing results from recent United States publications wherein these problems have been addressed. Papers selected for the discussion have k e n chosen such that the review will serve to survey important U.S. aero/aerothermodynamic real gas and conventional wind tunnel facilities that are useful in the study of hypersonic, hydrogen propelled hypervelocity vehicles.