Hypersonic Inlet for a Laser Powered Propulsion System

• DOI: 10.1063/1.3657023
• Publication Date: 2011-11-09T23:58:13Z
• Authors: Alan Harrland; Con Doolan; Vincent Wheatley; Dave Froning; Hans-Albert Eckel; Stefan Scharring
• Keywords: Ramjet; Scramjet

Propulsion within the lightcraft concept is produced via laser induced detonation of an incoming hypersonic air stream. This process requires suitable engine configurations that offer good performance over all flight speeds and angles attack to ensure required thrust maintained. Stream traced inlets have demonstrated in conventional hydrocarbon fuelled scramjet engines, has been applied powered vehicle. paper will outline current methodology employed inlet design, with a particular focus on at attack. Fully three‐dimensional turbulent computational fluid dynamics simulations performed variety configurations. The evaluated differing An idealized simulation also validate does not unstart during propulsion cycle.