THE HYPERSONIC

PROBLEM:
RE-ENGINEERING THE SCRAMJET ENGINE
By Shanda Otchere
CAN YOU
REALLY
TRAVEL
FROM LAX
TO NEW
YORK IN
15MINUTES?!
 WHAT IS
HYPERSONIC
FLIGHT?
The speed of sound is
344m/s or 1235km/hr
To travel within the range of
Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.2
means you are in the
Transonic regime
To travel between Mach 1 to
Mach 5, you are in the
Supersonic regime
To travel at Mach 5 or
greater, you are in the
Hypersonic regime
A Bumper rocket was the first to achieve
hypersonic speeds, 1949
Yuri Gagarin becomes first to travel hypersonically in
the first ever orbital flight, 1961
Alan Shepard becomes the second person to
achieve hypersonic flight during his
X-15 research airplane reaches Mach 6,
1961
 NASA X-43A flew on scramjet for 10 seconds,
and then glided for 10 minutes, 2004
The Boeing X-51 Waverider flies on
scramjet for 210 seconds reaching
 THE POWERHOUSE OF HYPERSONIC
AIRCRAFTS
RAMJET ENGINE SCRAMJET ENGINE

3 < Mach Number < 6 6 < Mach < 10,

11?,14?
 RAMJET ENGINE
 The Inlet of the ramjet engine increases
the pressure and temperature like a
compressor
 The hypersonic air flow is then slowed
down to subsonic speeds
 As we move faster, just slowing the flow
down causes the pressure and
temperature to increase
 So at higher speeds, the more we try to
slow the air down, the higher the
pressure and temperatures achieved
 The setback of the ramjet is that it slows
the air down so much that the pressure
and temperature increases immensely
 We then get to very high temperatures
 SCRAMJET
ENGINE
The Scramjet solves the
problem of the ramjet
It slows down the air flow
just a bit to supersonic speeds
instead of subsonic speeds
However, when the air flow
increases speed, the same
problem is faced again
The pressure and temperature
increase as a result of
slowing down the air flow
It then becomes very difficult
to burn the fuel
PROBLEM: BOTH THE SCRAMJET AND RAMJET
ENGINES CAN’T START FROM OM/S IN OTHER
WORDS, THEY CAN’T START FROM THE
GROUND; THEY NEED TAKEOFF ASSISTANCE

CHALLENGE: HOW CAN YOU GENERATE A

STARTING VELOCITY FOR A SCRAMJET
ENGINE?
 Reaction Engines’ Scimitar
A concept by Reaction
Engines
 It is a derivative of the
SABRE Engine technology
but intended for jet airliners
Designed around the ramjet
engine
It burns liquid hydrogen as
fuel
 Air Ionization
Ionization is when atom or
molecule loses/gains an
electron and becomes
positively/negatively
charged.
Therefore air Ionization is
when air molecules
become positively or
negatively charged
Air is a poor conductor
When there is a large
voltage gradient, a lot of
energy is produced