Chinese scientists have announced the successful testing of an advanced aircraft engine prototype called sodramjet – short for Standing Oblique Detonation Ramjet. It’s a hypersonic jet engine that can theoretically fly at sixteen times the speed of sound! An aircraft sporting such a machine would fly anywhere on the planet in only two hours.
Testing took place in Beijing in a hypersonic wind tunnel that simulates flight conditions. The sodramjet prototype clocked in at speeds nine times the speed of sound and displayed excellent operational stability, thrust, and fuel efficiency.
The researchers said:
This type of engine could be used in reusable trans-atmospheric planes [that will] take off horizontally from an airport runway, accelerate into orbit around the Earth, then re-enter into the atmosphere, and finally land at an airport.
The team, led by Professor Jiang Zonglin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Mechanics, is confident its revolutionary sodramjet could be one of the first to move commercial flights to hypersonic speeds.
According to the team, their new technology is superior to scramjet engines (supersonic combustion ramjet engines), which can operate at extremely high speeds by compressing incoming air before combustion.
One of the researchers explained:
The prototype engine has three major components — a single-stage air inlet, hydrogen fuel injector, and combustion chamber. It is easily mistaken for a sliding board.
The report says:
The shock waves met hydrogen fuel at the combustor and produced an explosion that pushed the engine forward. As the engine fired up, the mouth of the combustion chamber glowed like a Star Wars spaceship.
That’s about as much detail as the researchers plan to dish out at the moment. It’s not something they want the world to know too much about yet, and they’re still working on the development.
China keeps its hypersonic program quiet due to potential military uses. For the first time (last year), the country announced its presence in the hypersonic engine arena when it revealed a turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engine system. The TBCC engine helps the shift from low speed to hypersonic speed. It’s a combo turbine and scramjet engine.
Meanwhile, a team of US scientists has created a scramjet engine that was supposed to perform better at hypersonic speeds than a regular jet engine, but the design suffered setbacks. Nevertheless, these advances in flying technology are signs that humans are getting closer to realizing the dream of flying faster, further, and higher than ever before.
