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The so-called sodramjet engine offers a potential leap forward in the speeds of commercial flights. Scientists in China claim to have created the plane’s engine capable of running at blazing speeds of Mach 16.
If true, experts estimate that an aircraft powered by such an engine could arrive anywhere in the world within two hours of takeoff.
Test flight of a prototype in a hypersonic wind tunnel appears to verify unprecedented performance claims in terms of thrust, fuel efficiency and operational stability.
The extraordinary research was conducted by engineers led by Professor Jiang Zonglin of the Mechanical Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
They wrote in a peer-reviewed article published in the Chinese Journal of Aeronautics how they expect the engine to serve as well “reusable transatmospheric aircraft. [that will] it takes off horizontally from an airport runway, accelerates in orbit around the Earth, then re-enters the atmosphere and finally lands in an airport “.
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The revolutionary system has a relatively simple design, consisting of three main static components.
The engine only incorporates a single-stage air intake, a hydrogen fuel injector and a combustion chamber, with a vent that opens at the top end of the air intake.
A Beijing-based hypersonic flight researcher who was not involved in the study said: “It’s easily mistaken for a sliding board.”
The researchers put the engine to the test in a powerful wind tunnel that can simulate flight conditions at nine times the speed of sound.
However, the only wind tunnel on Earth that can simulate such a flight remains under construction in Beijing.
Professor Jiang and colleagues dubbed their work the permanent oblique detonation RAMjet engine, also known as sodramjet.
They suggest their engine may provide the best hope of achieving commercial flight at hypersonic speeds.
Current hypersonic flight engines called scramjets cannot be relied upon for such operations as they are deemed too weak, fuel inefficient and unstable.
The researchers said: “Seventy years of exploration in hypersonic propulsion indicates that the revolutionary concept really needs the development of hypersonic air-breathing motors.
“The sodramjet … can be a very promising choice.”
However, Dr. Uzi Rubin, founder and first director of the Israeli Missile Defense Organization and hypersonic missile expert, believes the new design is still “very experimental” and its benefits remain uncertain.
He said: “While promising… it will take about a generation to use it commercially.
“I believe hypersonic human flight is not imminent, if at all.”
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