The drive to develop hypersonic vehicles is illustrated by a synthetic history of hypersonics since WW II. The key feature of flying hypersonically are the kinetic energy dominating over enthalpy. The motivations for current interest in hypersonics are listed, and the two major applications, airbreathing engines powered vehicles and ballistics re-entry, are compared. This shows that in many military applications powered and glider vehicles have advantages over ballistic missiles. The fundamental aerodynamics issues associated to hypersonics (stagnation temperatures and pressures, low L/D, effect of shape) are briefly mentioned, to be developed at length in the next chapters. Basic information about normal and oblique shocks is reviewed and the definition of hypersonics in terms of the Mach number is justified by the relative importance of airstream kinetic energy in comparison to enthalpy.
Why Hypersonic Propulsion?
sp propuls
28.11.2023
17 pages
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
NTRS | 1975
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Online Contents | 1996
Hypersonic airbreathing propulsion
Engineering Index Backfile | 1964
|Hypersonic propulsion research
NTRS | 1987
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