2023年2月3日

飞向未来的速度

5分钟读

协和式飞机失事20年后, 回归商业超音速航空旅行是一个不可持续的梦想吗? 高超音速技术对全球防务和安全意味着什么? 《十大正规博彩网站排名》第二季第七集, host Dr Helen Sharman seeks answers to these and other questions from Conrad Banks, 劳斯莱斯公司总工程师.

Commercial supersonic flights; ramjets and scramjets; cooled gas turbines; air-breathing hypersonic missiles; synthetic and sustainable aviation fuels: the future of high-speed air technology is filled with thrilling possibilities, 但它也在可持续性方面提出了挑战, 可用性, 和安全.

这是第七集, 零压力播客的第二季, 由伦敦帝国理工学院和十大正规博彩网站排名公司主办, as host Helen Sharman discusses ‘飞向未来的速度’ with Conrad Banks, 劳斯莱斯的总工程师.

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再次达到超音速?

Helen and Conrad begin by looking at whether we will again see supersonic commercial flights. 协和式飞机于2003年坠毁, 在2000年巴黎发生致命空难之后, 由于成本效益和安全性，结束了超音速旅行的梦想.

“The industry lost confidence,” says Conrad Banks, but adds: “There’s a real demand for it again now.” While there are huge benefits in terms of the convenience of long-distance travel, Conrad says “We cannot do it in such a way that we risk the sustainability and environmental concerns of net zero emissions.”

Because, he explains, “The higher and faster you fly, the more fuel you burn per mile. It’s far more efficient to fly people in an A350 than to fly them in a new supersonic aircraft when they are developed.”,, 而像劳斯莱斯这样的公司正在研究电力推进, 混合动力推进, 氢燃料的应用, 没有一个适合长途旅行, 高速飞行是因为需要能量和功率密度.

According to Conrad, the answer is SAFs: synthetic and sustainable aviation fuels. “For commercial high-speed travel we have to look at conventional air-breathing with synthetic aviation fuel,他说.

尽管如此, Conrad estimates that the days of three-to-four-hour trips across the Atlantic are perhaps just a decade away, 飞机以1马赫的速度飞行.5速度，使用正常的燃气轮机运行在saf. 飞机制造商现在正在研究这个问题.

我们怎样才能飞得更快?

航空航天业的视野远不止1马赫.5. Transatlantic flights at Mach 4 or 5 that take just 90 minutes are also an ambition. 然而, that depends on the development of a smooth and safe way to transition to ‘ramjet’ propulsion, 哪一种使用ram进气压缩空气并增加压力, 然后与燃料混合，进行反应，推动飞行器前进.

“当速度超过2到2马赫时.5，你达到了燃气涡轮的极限，但是冲压发动机只能达到3马赫. There’s a window in between where it’s too hot to get enough thrust,” says Conrad.

The obvious way, rocket-based propulsion, is both too expensive and environmentally unsustainable. 而不是, the answer lies with using conventional aero gas turbines for the transition to supersonic speeds.

The alternatives here are an advanced gas turbine or an affordable gas turbine that’s been pre-cooled. 康拉德说，后者最有希望, involving the rapid cooling of the air into the gas turbine through heat exchange that uses thousands of small tubes filled with coolant.

“The turbine goes from 1000 degrees Celsius to 0 degrees in the blink of an eye,他说.

高超音速技术对国防和安全意味着什么.

当某物以超过5马赫的速度在空中飞行时, 它变成了高超音速, 它被称为“超燃冲压发动机”(超音速燃烧冲压发动机)。. There are al读y hypersonic missiles travelling through the air at incredible speeds, and which are controllable and directable mid-flight in a way that far outdoes intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

这已成为国防和安全工业关注的一个关键领域, 下面是凯利·斯蒂芬妮博士对海伦的采访, Associate Professor of the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“A platform capable of travelling at such high speeds challenges the way we think about responding to those systems in terms of defence. It also changes how we think about leveraging the capability -the response time required to defend against these systems. 如果他们的操作超出了典型的性能范围, 然后需要更短的响应时间,Stephani博士说.

这非常具有挑战性. No wonder that Dr Stephani was keen to encourage young scientists and engineers to get involved in this research area.

Conrad Banks says the prospect of a projectile or vehicle travelling at Mach 10 is less than a decade away; the Russians al读y claim to have a missile that reaches Mach 9.7.

A whole host of developing technologies is al读y being developed to counteract the threats. It’s not just high speed, then, but the speed of response to it that’s vital, too.