News JVTech China Takes Giant Leap in Supersonic Flight: Engine Capable of Reaching Mach 9 on Cheap Fuel
Published on 11/30/2022 at 4:45 p.m.
China takes a new step in hypersonic propulsion. This is a race for technology that has set China and the United States ablaze for many decades already, and yet the Middle Kingdom could well surprise us with its new technologies…
A brand new engine for Chinese aviation
A Chinese scientific group has reported to the South China Morning Post newspaper that they have succeeded in developing a supersonic detonation wave engine, capable of sending an aircraft at nine times the speed of sound, more commonly known as “Mach 9”. . To tell you, this speed is equivalent to about 11 kilometers per hour, all with low cost fuel.
The researchers achieved this following several experiments with this famous detonation engine during numerous ground tests, in the dedicated facility in Beijing.
All the characteristics of the apparatus used for these tests have of course been published in the Journal of Experiments in Fluid Mechanics. The report by the team led by engineer Liu Yunfenf explains that the results of these engine tests with conventional kerosene have never been published before.
Detonation engines can offer greater efficiency than other alternative methods for flights of this kind. This engine manages to generate a series of explosions which in turn release a powerful flow of energy. This technology is not really new, and other detonation engines have of course already been tested by American agencies. This type of engine needs hydrogen, a fuel that has two major drawbacks: its price and its safety (because of the explosions generated by the engine).
Liu’s team wanted to focus on these two weak points, in particular by using RP-3, a fuel that gives off much less heat than conventional diesel. The use of this kind of jet fuel in hypersonic flight has long been considered but for its practical application, it is another lemonade… Its combustion being “delayed” compared to diesel, the RP-3 is much slower than kerosene, hence the fact that the plane needs to create bigger explosions to stay in the air, and to propel itself. In the case of a flight at very high speed, every second counts, and it takes fuel capable of maintaining a certain stability to move the aircraft forward.
With a slight modification concerning the ventilation of the engine, the Chinese researchers managed to facilitate the ignition of this jet fuel, which then makes this engine even more unique than those created by the Americans.
The work of this team is therefore not pioneering with regard to internal combustion engines, but it is the first time that such engineering optimizations have managed to give such results.
The United States is advancing on its side to surpass China
On the side of Uncle Sam, certain research groups have succeeded in creating engines which, theoretically, can propel an airplane to Mach 17.
But for once, nothing has yet been concretely proven and the efforts of Chinese researchers are gradually beginning to show their fruits. In the United States, teams are working hard to create a rotary detonation engine, which could therefore prevent the plane from losing altitude between each detonation.
The technologies seem very interesting, especially for civil applications such as air transport. But of course, everything will of course go through the “military” box, and China has already developed several supersonic missiles, such as the DF-17 and the YJ-21.
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