2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
Calculated Mach lines on the computer model HEXAFLY-INT
The French Center for Aerospace Research (ONERA) has begun reviewing the HEXAFLY-INT hypersonic passenger aircraft concept and early laboratory testing of some of its systems and components. According to CNET France, flight tests of a prototype of a hypersonic aircraft are scheduled to begin in 2020. Consideration of the concept, which is being carried out jointly with Russian and Australian project participants, began at the end of October and should be completed by the end of this year.
Research centers from the European Union, Russia and Australia have been developing the HEXAFLY-INT project since 2014. By the end of 2018, Brazil may join the project. On behalf of the European Union, the project coordinator is the European Center for Space Research and Technology, and on behalf of Russia - the Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute. In the summer of 2017, at the MAKS-2017 air show, Russian developers presented a model of the HEXAFLY-INT hypersonic aircraft.
The model of a hypersonic passenger aircraft is intended for research in a wind tunnel. First of all, it should help in determining the optimal ratio between the internal useful volume of the aircraft and the cross-section of the air intake of a hypersonic ramjet engine. The device is made according to the scheme of the carrier body, in which in flight a significant part of the lift is generated on a wide fuselage. The model is also equipped with a short wing with a large sweep and two keels.
Within the framework of the project, it is planned to create a technology demonstrator with a length of about three meters. According to Aviation Week, tests of the technology demonstrator will be carried out in Brazil at the Alcantara cosmodrome. According to current plans, the HEXAFLY-INT technology demonstrator will have to show the possibility of a stable and controlled flight at a speed of at least seven Mach numbers (about 8, 6 thousand kilometers per hour). At the same time, the project provides for the creation of an aircraft with a cruising flight speed of eight Mach numbers. The HEXAFLY-INT project is calculated until April 2019.
According to the French Center for Aerospace Research, early tests, among other things, are testing individual elements of a promising demonstrator in a wind tunnel. Other details about the progress of the project were not specified. In April of this year, the N + 1 correspondent learned about the beginning of bench tests of a prototype of a promising hydrogen hypersonic ramjet engine, which is being developed within the framework of the HEXAFLY-INT project.
The first tests showed that the technology demonstrator of the new power plant was able to operate reliably at an air speed of 7.4 Mach numbers. The checks are carried out in a special wind tunnel. From 2019, it is planned to start flight tests of the power plant. Hydrogen hypersonic engine externally is a wedge-shaped rectangular structure with a narrowing in the central part, where there is a slight deceleration of the air flow, mixing with fuel and ignition.
The power plant works on the principle of creating a pressure difference between the inlet and outlet. The designers calculated that, in theory, a hydrogen engine is capable of speeds up to 12 Mach numbers. The minimum flight speed at which the engine starts to work stably is Mach 2, 2-2, 5. The engine can operate at flight altitudes up to 35 thousand meters. In the power plant, hydrogen is supplied through two belts, one of which is located at the entrance to the combustion chamber closer to the air intake, and the second is located in the middle of the elliptical combustion chamber.
