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Scramjet Success in Australia

Posted by chrisd on from the faster-than-a-speeding-uh-sr71 dept.

glengyron writes "Australia's ABC reports today that a University of Queensland team have successfully tested a supersonic scramjet (air-breathing supersonic combustion ramjet engine). Read more here or here. Great to see after previous problems. Does the future of air travel still include those breakfast egg-roll things?"

5 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. A little more info by Bastian · · Score: 5, Informative

    A diagram of the difference in design between a ramjet and a scramjet engine can be found here.

    For more information, check out the HyShot homepage.

    1. Re:A little more info by ender81b · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A little more info from Encylopedia Astronautica. A scramjet is vastly more efficent than standard chemical rockets because only half the fuel has to be carried (hydrogen). Also scramjets have a greater ISP than most regular chemical engines and have no moving parts, unlike the hundreds of parts on moden rocket engines.

      Taken from here

      air/LH2 (scramjet) ISP=1,550

      Space Shuttle Main Engines

      ISP = 453

      Obviously scramjets are vastly more efficent. Of course ION engines have ISP values of roughly 5,000-6,000 and fusion another magnitude greater, etc. Still lots of room for improvement.

    2. Re:A little more info by tony_gardner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately, the diagram is not totally correct. It's possible to have scramjets with duct convergences, and ramjets without duct convergences. The difference lies in the fact that in a ramjet the air becomes subsonic, and in a scramjet the air does not become subsonic.
      Making the air subsonic provides a great deal of control over the combustion process, thus the problem with scramjets.

  2. Australia's inventing all the cool stuff. by marcsiry · · Score: 5, Interesting


    First the Metal Storm, now this!

    Soon Australians will be able to fly up to anyone, anywhere in the world, within minutes, and then cut them to ribbons.

    I wish I was Australian.

    --
    Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
  3. "Successfully tested" by Hitokage_Nishino · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, considering the feat of testing was accomplished instead of the plane exploding and crashing on unaware kangaroos... one could say they had "successfully tested".