Air-Attack.com - Ramjets and Scramjets

Interesting Related link: NASA Ramjet simulation, JAVA Applet

Scramjets (supersonic-combustion ramjets) are those in which the airflow through the whole engine remains supersonic.

It is mechanically simple, but vastly more complex aerodynamically than a jet engine.
In a scramjet powered aircraft, there must be tight integration between the airframe and the engine.
Scramjet technology is challenging because only limited testing can be performed in ground facilities.
Long duration, full-scale testing requires flight test speeds above Mach 8.
X-43 Hyper-X, NASA's testbed for the scramjet, serves this purpose. To get the engine to that speed, some other power has to be used.
In the NASA Hyper-X, this will be provided by OSC's pegasus booster. It must be noted here that scramjets are good only for sustaining hypersonic speeds, not for achieving them from zero.

Scientists realized during early experiments that evolving the well-known ramjet to a supersonic combustion engine was a challenging and complex task. In the ensuing years, scientists conducted several programs in the US with the objective of proving the scramjet as a viable propulsion system, however, none advanced to the flight test stage.
Today, scientists are working two programs to demonstrate the nearly half-century-old vision. Under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Hyper-X program and the Propulsion Directorate's Hypersonic Technology (HyTech) program, scientists plan to demonstrate hydrogen- and hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet engines respectively. The hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet, though less energetic than the hydrogen-fueled engine, is much more logistically supportable.
The objective of the directorate's HyTech program is to demonstrate the operability, performance, and structural durability of a Mach 4-8 hydrocarbon-fueled scramjet propulsion system.
HyTech scientists employ a building block approach to solve progressively more complex challenges using the knowledge garnered from preceding developments. This approach begins with discrete component build and test, and culminates with a flight test in an appropriate mission-sized vehicle. The long-term goal is to develop scramjet engine technologies for routine, affordable, on-demand access to space.

In july 2002, the Australina HyShot program succesfully launched a hypersonic, sramjet propulsed rocket, to a speed of Mach 7.6, or 7.6 times the speed of sound.
BBC news article
Anoter article on the test flight

Recent developments:

May. 8th, 2006 | Japan to Talk With NASA on Supersonic Jet

TOKYO -- Stung by repeated setbacks, Japan's space agency plans to start talks next month with NASA about jointly developing a supersonic successor to the retired Concorde, an official said Monday. Japan is trying to leapfrog ahead in the aerospace field with a plan to build a next-generation airliner that can fly between Tokyo and Los Angeles in about three hours. But a string of glitches, including a nose cone problem during the latest test flight in March, has led the Japan Aerospace Expl...
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Mar. 25th, 2006 | HyShot scramjet experiment blasts off in South Australian desert

A $2 million scramjet experiment was launched at Woomera, 500km north of Adelaide, South Australia at approximately 1.45pm local time. The University of Queensland-led HyShot™ III experiment uses a scramjet engine developed by UK company, QinetiQ. The scramjet was attached to a Terrier-Orion rocket combination and aimed to fly at an estimated Mach 8 (or about 8000km/hr). The rocket and the precious payload were taken to an altitude of 314km during a 10-minute flight. They were th...
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Mar. 23rd, 2006 | Scientists gear up for new scramjet tests

A new scramjet engine, shaped like a bullet, will be tested in the Australian desert tomorrow by an international team of scientists that hopes it will be more efficient than previous designs. Australian researchers from the HyShot Flight Program at the University of Queensland, will test the new scramjet, developed by a British defence technology company, QinetiQ. The experiment is to be carried out on Australian defence property at Woomera in South Australia this Friday local time and is...
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Jan. 19th, 2006 | Towards air-breathing rockets

THE INDIAN Space Research Organisation (ISRO) added another feather to its cap when it successfully tested the use of oxygen moving at a speed of Mach 6 — six times the speed of sound — in laboratory conditions to produce a stable supersonic combustion lasting for a few seconds. Put in a nutshell, the organisation has tested the scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) technology that uses air moving at supersonic speed (Mach 6) for ignition. The speed of sound is 750 km per second and is cal...
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Dec. 23rd, 2005 | Wright-Pat scramjet earns X-plane status from the Pentagon

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE | The Pentagon has given X-plane status to a $212 million program aimed at test-flying a revolutionary jet engine developed at Wright-Patterson, the Air Force Research Laboratory announced this week. The designation puts the project in the ranks of other legendary flight research programs that began with the X-1 rocket plane Chuck Yeager flew to break the sound barrier in 1947. Lab research indicates the engine, known as a scramjet, can propel an aircraft at...
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This page was last updated on: 2006-02-01