Seminar Report

CONTENTS:
1. INTRODUCTION
2. HISTORY OF THE SCRAMJET
3. THEORY
4. ABOUT THE ENGINE
5. OPERATIONS
6. ABOUT THE FUEL USED
7. APPLICATIONS
8. HYPERSONIC SCRAMJET VEHICLES
9. RECENT PROGRESS 10. CONCLUSION

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SCRAMJET

Seminar Report

SCRAMJET

THE SCRAMJET ENGINE

INTRODUCTION
One thing has always been true about rockets: The farther and
faster you want to go, the bigger you rocket needs to be.
Why? Rockets combine a liquid fuel with liquid oxygen to create
thrust. Take away the need for liquid oxygen and your spacecraft
can be smaller or carry more pay load.
That's the idea behind a different propulsion system called
"scramjet," or Supersonic Combustion Ramjet
The oxygen needed by the engine to combust is taken from the
atmospheric air passing through the vehicle, instead of from a
tank onboard
Its mechanically simple as it has no moving parts.
All this makes the craft smaller, lighter, faster and have more room
to carry payload.

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SCRAMJET
HISTORY OF SCRAMJET
During and after World War II, tremendous amounts of time and effort
were put into researching high-speed jet- and rocket-powered aircraft.
The Bell X-l attained supersonic flight in 1947, and by the early
1960s, rapid progress towards faster aircraft suggested that
operational aircraft would be flying at "hypersonic" speeds within a
few years. Except for specialized rocket research vehicles like the
American X-15 and other rocket-powered spacecraft, aircraft top
speeds have remained level, generally in the range of Mach 1 to Mach
2.
In the realm of civilian air transport, the primary goal has been
reducing operating cost, rather than increasing flight speeds. Because
supersonic flight requires significant amounts of fuel, airlines have
favored subsonic jumbo jets rather than supersonic transports. The
production supersonic airliners, the Concorde and Tupolev Tu-144
operated at a financial loss (with the possible exception of British
Airways that never opened the accounts). Military aircraft design
focused on maneuverability and stealth, features thought to be
incompatible with hypersonic aerodynamics.
Hypersonic flight concepts haven't gone away, however, and low-level
investigations have continued over the past few decades. Presently,
the US military and NASA have formulated a "National Hypersonics
Strategy" to investigate a range of options for hypersonic flight. Other
nations such as Australia, France, and Russia have also progressed in
hypersonic propulsion research.

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SCRAMJET
Different U.S. organizations have accepted hypersonic flight as a
common goal. The U.S. Army desires hypersonic missiles that can
attack mobile missile launchers quickly. NASA believes hypersonics
could help develop economical, reusable launch vehicles.

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Seminar Report

SCRAMJET
The Air Force is interested in a wide range of hypersonic systems,
from air-launched cruise missiles to orbital spaceplanes, that the
service believes could bring about a true "aerospace force."
The University of Queensland, Australia reported in 1995 the first
development of a scramjet that achieved more thrust than drag[l] and
in 2002 successfully tested the HyShot Scramjet system.
And the most recent successful tests were achieved by NASA's
Hyper-X project in 2004 (around Mach 10). Currently research and
development is going on for a craft that can break the Mach 10 barrier.
THEORY
What is a scramjet?
In a conventional ramjet, the incoming supersonic airflow is slowed to
subsonic speeds by multiple shock waves, created by back-pressuring
the engine. Fuel is added to the subsonic airflow, the mixture
combusts, and exhaust gases accelerate through a narrow throat, or
mechanical choke, to supersonic speeds. By contrast, the airflow in a
pure scramjet remains supersonic throughout the combustion process
and does not require a choking mechanism, which provides optimal
performance over a wider operating range of Mach numbers. Modern
scramjet engines can function as both a ramjet and scramjet and
seamlessly make the transition between the two.

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SCRAMJET
About MACH Number and Speed of Sound
As an aircraft moves through the air, the air molecules near the
aircraft are disturbed and move around the aircraft. Exactly how the
air re-acts to the aircraft depends upon the ratio of the speed of the
aircraft to the speed of sound through the air. Because of the
importance of this speed ratio, aerodynamicists have designated it
with a special parameter called the Mach number in honor of Ernst
Mach, a late 19th century physicist who studied gas dynamics.
Basic Definitions:
speed of sound: The speed of sound is a basic property of the
atmosphere that changes with temperature. For a given set of
conditions, the speed of sound defines the velocity
t which sound waves travel through a substance, such as air.
Scientists have devised a standard atmosphere model that
defines typical values for the speed of sound that change with
altitude.
Mach number: Mach number is a quantity that defines how
quickly a vehicle travels with respect to the speed of sound. The
Mach number (M) is simply the ratio of the vehicle's velocity
(V) divided by the speed of sound at that altitude (a).
For example, an aircraft flying at Mach 0.8 is traveling at 80%
of the speed of sound while a missile cruising at Mach 3 is
traveling at three times the speed of sound.

Different speed regions:

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subsonic: A vehicle that is traveling slower than the speed

e,

of sound (M<1) is said to be flying at subsonic speeds.

transonic: As the speed of the object approaches the

speed of sound, the flight Mach number is nearly equal to

1,

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SCRAMJET
and the flow is said to be transonic.
supersonic: A vehicle that is traveling faster than the
speed of sound (M>1) is said to be flying at supersonic
speeds.
sound barrier: The term sound barrier is often associated
with supersonic flight. In particular, "breaking the sound
barrier" is the process of accelerating through Mach 1 and
going from subsonic to supersonic speeds.
hypersonic: For speeds greater than five times the speed
of sound, M > 5, the flow is said to be hypersonic.

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About the Engine

The scramjet provides the most integrated engine-vehicle design for aircraft
and missiles. The engine occupies the entire lower surface of the vehicle
body. The propulsion system consists of five major engine and two vehicle
components: the internal inlet, isolator, combustor, internal nozzle, and fuel
supply subsystem, and the craft's forebody, essential for air induction, and
aftbody, which is a critical part of the nozzle component.
The high-speed air-induction system consists of the vehicle forebody and
internal inlet, which capture and compress air for processing by the engine's
other components. Unlike jet engines, vehicles flying at high supersonic or
hypersonic speeds can achieve adequate compression without a mechanical
compressor. The forebody provides the initial compression, and the internal
inlet provides the final compression. The air undergoes a reduction in Mach
number and an increase in pressure and temperature as it passes through
shock waves at the forebody and internal inlet.
The isolator in a scramjet is a critical component. It allows a supersonic flow
to adjust to a static back-pressure higher than the inlet static pressure. When
the combustion process begins to separate the boundary layer, a
precombustion shock forms in the isolator. The isolator also enables the
combustor to achieve the required heat release and handle the induced rise in
combustor pressure without creating a condition called inlet unstart, in which
shock waves prevent airflow from entering the isolator.
The combustor accepts the airflow and provides efficient fuel-air mixing
at several points along its length, which optimizes engine thrust.

The expansion system, consisting of the internal nozzle and vehicle aftbody,
controls the expansion of the highpressure, high-temperature gas mixture to
produce net thrust. The expansion process converts the potential energy
generated by the combustor to kinetic energy.
The important physical phenomena in the scramjet nozzle include flow
chemistry, boundarylayer effects, nonuniform flow conditions, shear-layer
interaction, and three-dimensional effects. The design of the nozzle has a
major effect on the efficiency of the engine and the vehicle, because it
influences the craft's pitch and lift.
Changing from subsonic to supersonic combustion, the kinetic energy of the
freestream air entering the scramjet engine is large compared to the energy
released by the reaction of the oxygen content of the air with a fuel (say
hydrogen). Thus the heat released from combustion at Mach 25 is around
10% of the total enthalpy of the working fluid. Depending on the fuel, the
kinetic energy of the air and the potential combustion heat release will be
equal at around Mach 8. Thus the design of a scramjet engine is as much
about minimising drag as maximising thrust.

Operations
An air-breathing hypersonic vehicle requires several types of engine
operations to reach scramjet speeds. The vehicle may utilize one of several
propulsion systems to accelerate from takeoff to Mach 3. Two examples are a
bank of gas-turbine engines in the vehicle, or the use of rockets, either
internal or external to the engine. At Mach 3-4, a scramjet transitions from
low-speed propulsion to a situation in which the shock system has sufficient
strength to create a region(s) of subsonic flow at the entrance to the
combustor. In a conventional ramjet, the inlet and diffuser decelerate the air to
low subsonic speeds by increasing the diffuser area, which ensures complete
combustion at subsonic speeds. A converging- diverging nozzle behind the
combustor creates a physical throat and generates the desired engine thrust.
The required choking in a scramjet, however, is provided within the
combustor by means of a thermal throat, which needs no physical narrowing
of the nozzle. This choke is created by the right combination of area
distribution, fuel-air mixing, and heat release.
During the time a scramjet-powered vehicle accelerates from Mach 3 to 8, the
airbreathing propulsion system undergoes a transition between Mach 5 and 7.
Here, a mixture of ramjet and scramjet combustion occurs. The total rise in
temperature and pressure across the combustor begins to decrease.
Consequently, a weaker precombustion system is required, and the
precombustion shock is pulled back from the inlet throat toward the entrance
to the combustor. As speeds increase beyond Mach 5, the use of supersonic
combustion can provide higher performance .
Engine efficiency dictates using the ramjet until Mach 5-6. At

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nd Mach 6, decelerating airflow to subsonic speeds for combustion

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results in parts of the airflow almost halting, which creates high

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pressures and heat-transfer rates. Somewhere between Mach 5 and

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6, the combination of these factors indicates a switch to scramjet

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operation. When the vehicle accelerates beyond Mach 7, the

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combustion process can no longer separate the airflow, and the

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engine operates in scramjet mode without a precombustion shock.

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The inlet shocks propagate through the entire engine. Beyond Mach

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8, physics dictates supersonic combustion because the engine cannot

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survive the pressure and heat buildup caused by slowing the airflow

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to subsonic speeds.

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Scramjet operation at Mach 5-15 presents several technical

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problems to achieving efficiency. These challenges include fuel-air

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mixing, management of engine heat loads, increased heating on

bust

leading edges, and developing structures and materials that can

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withstand hypersonic flight. When the velocity of the injected fuel

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equals that of the airstream entering the scramjet combustor, which

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occurs at about Mach 12, mixing the air and fuel becomes difficult.

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And at higher Mach numbers, the high temperatures in the

man

combustor cause dissociation and ionization. These factors

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coupled with already-complex flow phenomena such as supersonic

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mixing, isolator- combustor interactions, and flame propagation

pose obstacles to flow-path design, fuel injection, and thermal

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management of the combustor.

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Several sources contribute to engine heating during hypersonic

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flight, including heating of the vehicle skin from subsystems such as

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the engine in hypersonic vehicles because of its potential for

extremely high heat loads.

The engine represents a particularly challenging problem because the flow

path is characterized by very high thermal, mechanical, and acoustic loading,
as well as a corrosive mix of hot oxygen and combustion products. If the
engine is left uncooled, temperatures in the combustor would exceed 5,000 F,
which is higher than the melting point of most metals. Fortunately, a
combination of structural design, material selection, and active cooling can
manage the high temperatures.
Hypersonic vehicles also pose an extraordinary challenge for structures and
materials. The airframe and engine require lightweight, high-temperature
materials and structural configurations that can withstand the extreme
environment of hypersonic flight.
The challenges include:
Very high temperatures
Heating of the whole vehicle
Steady-state and transient localized heating from shock waves
High aerodynamic loads
High fluctuating pressure loads
The potential for severe flutter, vibration, fluctuating and thermally-induced
pressures
Erosion from airflow over the vehicle and through the engine

About the Fuel used

The scramjet is an airbreather, meaning that it gets its oxygen from the
surrounding air. However, the scramjet is significantly different from other
kinds of jet engines, like turbojets and ramjets, in one key way. In most jets,
the air pulled into the engines is slowed below Mach 1 and is combusted at
subsonic speeds. The air within the scramjet combustion chamber, however,
remains supersonic. The challenge of making a scramjet work is properly
mixing the high-speed air with fuel while combusting and expanding that
mixture before it exits the tail of the vehicle. This process typically occurs in
less than 1 millisecond (0.001 seconds). Furthermore, the scramjet must burn
enough fuel to generate an enormous amount of energy needed to overcome
the tremendous drag forces experienced when flying at hypersonic speeds.
In order to make a scramjet work, researchers must choose a fuel that can burn
rapidly and generate a large amount of thrust. Hydrogen meets these criteria.
One way to illustrate the differences between various fuels and their energy
content is a measurement called the Lower Heating Value (LHV). The LHV
describes the amount of energy released when a fuel is combusted and all of
the remaining combustion products remain in gaseous form. The LHV for
hydrogen is 119,600 kJ/kg. JP-8, another fuel commonly used in military
aircraft, has a LHV of only 43,190 kJ/kg, less than half that of hydrogen.
Simply put, hydrogen provides more "bang" per kilogram than JP-8, or any
other hydrocarbon fuel for that matter.

There are also other advantages to using hydrogen as a fuel. First of all,
hydrogen is extremely flammable; it only takes a small amount of energy to
ignite it and make it burn. Hydrogen also has a wide flammability range,
meaning that it can burn when it occupies anywhere from 4% to 74% of the
air by volume. Since hydrogen is a gas, it mixes very easily with air allowing
for very efficient combustion. Another advantage over hydrocarbon-based
fuels like JP-8 or gasoline is that hydrogen does not produce any harmful
pollutants like carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (C02), or particulate
matter during the combustion process. It is for this reason alone that many
researchers have promoted hydrogen as a fuel in the public transportation
industry.
Nevertheless, there are some disadvantages to using hydrogen as a fuel in
aerospace vehicles. Hydrogen is not a dense fuel. At standard pressure and
temperature, it has a density of only 0.09 kg/m3. Compare that to the density
of gasoline at 750 kg/m3 or JP-8 at 800 kg/m3. While this low density is an
advantage in terms of saving weight, hydrogen requires a large volume in
order to store an adequate amount of chemical energy for practical use.
Hydrogen gas is typically stored under pressure to increase its density, but
even at 10,000 psi (68,950 kPa) it will contain only a quarter of the chemical
energy stored in an equivalent volume of JP-8.
The density of hydrogen can be further increased by cooling and pressurizing
the substance to the point that it becomes a liquid, but even in this form it will
need a tank approximately twice the size of that required by JP-8. In addition,
the cost and safety issues involved in manufacturing and storing
cryogenically-cooled fuel is another major drawback. Despite the clear
advantages of hydrogen described earlier, more energy can often be stored in

smaller volumes using denser fuels. As a result, vehicles burning denser

hydrocarbon fuels can usually fly longer distances than those using hydrogen.

APPLICATIONS
Seeing its clear potential, organizations around the world are researching
scramjet technology. Scramjets will likely propel missiles first, since that
application requires only cruise operation instead of net thrust production.
Much of the money for the current research comes from governmental
defence research contracts.
Space launch vehicles may benefit from having a scramjet stage. A scramjet
stage of a launch vehicle theoretically provides a specific impulse with 1000 to
4000 s whereas a rocket provides less than 600 s whilst in the atmosphere [1],
potentially permitting much cheaper access to space.
One issue is that scramjets are predicted to have exceptionally poor thrust to
weight ratio- around 2 . This compares unfavourably with a typical rocket
engine that is usually 50-100. This is compensated for in scramjets partly
because the weight of the vehicle would be carried by aerodynamic lift rather
than pure rocket power (giving reduced 'gravity losses'), but scramjets would
take much longer to get to orbit which offsets the advantage.
Whether this vehicle would be reusable or not is still a subject of debate and
research.
An aircraft using this type of jet engine could dramatically reduce the time it
takes to travel from one place to another, potentially putting any place on
Earth within a 90 minute flight. However, there are questions about whether
such a vehicle could carry enough fuel to make useful length trips, and there
are obvious issues with sonic booms and acceptable g-loads on passengers.

Hypersonic SCRAMJET vehicle applications

National Aerospace Plane (NASP) and X-30: During the 1980s, NASA began
considering a hypersonic single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle to replace the
Space Shuttle. The proposed National Aerospace Plane (NASP) would take
off from a standard runway using some kind of low speed jet engine. Once the
aircraft had reached sufficient speed, air-breathing ramjet or scramjet engines
would power the aircraft to hypersonic velocities (Mach 20 or more) and to
the edge of the atmosphere. A small rocket system would provide the final
push into orbit, but the attractiveness of the concept was using the atmosphere
to provide most of the fuel needed to get into space. NASP eventually
matured into the X-30 research vehicle, which used an integrated scramjet
propulsion system.
The X-30 was intended to replace the Space Shuttle but was cancelled in
the early 1990s due to escalating costs and lack of military support.
X-43 Hyper-X: NASA's Hyper-X project, now known as the X-43 will be
the first vehicle using an air-breathing engine ever flight tested at hypersonic
speeds.Looking much like a scaled-down X-30, the Hyper-X is a small,
unpiloted vehicle intended to test an integrated scramjet engine from Mach 7
to 10. To become airborne, the X-43 will be mounted on the nose of a
Pegasus rocket carried aloft and released by a B-52. The Pegasus will power
the test craft to about 100,000 ft and the desired test speed before the X-43
separates and its scramjet engine engages. The Hyper-X will only fly for a
few seconds before falling into the ocean, but data collected from these test
flights will be used to develop practical hypersonic scramjet engines for
future vehicles.

The first X-43 test flight, conducted in June 2001, ended in failure after the
Pegasus booster rocket became unstable and went out of control. In addition,
three follow-on models are also being considered. First of these is the X-43C
which will test a hydrocarbon-fueled dual mode scramjet being developed by
Pratt & Whitney under the Air Force's HyTech program. The HyTech engine is
expected to accelerate the enlarged X-43C from Mach 5 to Mach 7.
Two propulsion concepts are currently being considered for an X-43B model.
First of these is a rocket-based combined cycle (RBCC) engine under
development by Aerojet, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and Rocketdyne. The
RBCC engine is a new technology using a rocket engine fed by oxygen from
the atmosphere rather than carried aboard the vehicle. The effort is being
funded by NASA Marshall under the Integrated Systems Test of an
Airbreathing Rocket (ISTAR) program. Meanwhile, an alternative propulsion
arrangement is being developed at NASA Glenn as part of the Revolutionary
Turbine Accelerator (RTA) program. The RTA engine uses a turbine-based
combined cycle (TBCC) to push turbojet technology to much higher speeds
than is possible with current jet engines. Regardless of the engine eventually
selected, plans call for the vehicle to be air-launched at Mach 0.8 and
accelerate to Mach 7 or 8 over 10 minutes. The RTA engine would accerate to
about Mach 5 where a HyTech engine like that used on the X-43C would take
over. Both the RBCC and TBCC vehicles would be able to glide down for
landing and reuse permitting up to 25 flights.
A final proposal is for an X-43D, an evolved version of the original X-43 A.
While the X-43 A is powered by an uncooled hydrogen-fueled scramjet
engine, the X-43D would use a cooled, liquid-hydrogen-fueled scramjet. The
upgraded engine would provide 10 seconds of power and be capable of

accelerating to Mach 15.

Commercial Transports: Hypersonic vehicles in general and waveriders in

particular have long been touted as potential high-speed commercial
transports to replace the Concorde. Some aerospace companies, airlines, and
government officials have proposed vehicles cruising at Mach 7 to 12 capable
of carrying passengers from New York to Tokyo in under two hours.
Military Applications: Probably the greatest proponent of hypersonic travel
over the years has been the United States military. Trends of the 1950s and
1960s indicated that military aircraft had to fly faster and higher to survive, so
concepts for high-altitude fighters and bombers cruising at Mach 4 or more
were not uncommon. Although the trend soon fizzled and military planners
looked to maneuverability and stealth for survival, the military has recently
shown renewed interest in hypersonic flight. For example, many have
conjectured about the existence of a Mach 5 spy plane, the Aurora, that may
be under development or perhaps already flying. If so, the Aurora may be a
scramjet-powered design similar to the X-30 and X-43 research vehicles.More
recently, Northrop Grumman has unveiled a concept for a hypersonic bomber
designed using waverider principles.
Cruise Missiles: Though developing a man-rated hypersonic vehicle like
those described above will likely require decades of work and enormous cost,
militaries around the world will likely have hypersonic cruise missiles
entering service by 2015. Most current concepts for high-speed missiles are
simple cylinders with no relation to waveriders.

RECENT PROGRESS
In recent years, significant progress has been made in the development of
hypersonic technology, particularly in the field of scramjet engines. While
American efforts are probably the best funded, the first to demonstrate a
scramjet working in an atmospheric test was a shoestring project by an
Australian team at the University of Queensland. The university's HyShot
project demonstrated scramjet combustion in 2002. This demonstration was
somewhat limited, however; while the scramjet engine worked effectively and
demonstrated supersonic combustion in action, the engine was not designed to
provide thrust to propel a craft.
The US Air Force and Pratt and Whitney have cooperated on the Hypersonic
Technology (HyTECH) scramjet engine, which has now been demonstrated in
a wind-tunnel environment. NASA's Marshall Space Propulsion Center has
introduced an Integrated Systems Test of an Air-Breathing Rocket (ISTAR)
program, prompting Pratt & Whitney, Aerojet, and Rocketdyne to join forces
for development.
The most advanced US hypersonics program is the US$250 million NASA
Langley Hyper-X X-43A effort, which flew small test vehicles to demonstrate
hydrogen-fueled scramjet engines. NASA is worked with contractors Boeing,
Microcraft, and the General Applied Science Laboratory (GASL) on the
project.
The NASA Langley, Marshall, and Glenn Centers are now all heavily
engaged in hypersonic propulsion studies. The Glenn Center is taking
leadership on a Mach 4 turbine engine of interest to the USAF. As for the
X-43A Hyper-X, three follow-on projects are now under consideration.

CONCLUSION
Imagine a jet engine that doesn't pollute the atmosphere, flies more than five
times the speed of sound and carry more pay load.
This can be made into reality using Scramjet Engines that is powered by
oxygen it scoops out of the air as it flies.
It will take years of work before scramjets are available for practical uses,
but they could eventually revolutionize space launches and commercial
flights.
Therfore Scramjets are truly the future of flight.