Novel Architected Materials for Drag Reduction and Flow Control in Hypersonic Vehicles
Abstract
Hypersonic flight is an emerging national priority with the potential to disrupt commercial aviation, defense, and space exploration. Velocities faster than five times the speed of sound or Mach 5 are generally considered hypersonic. This type of technology would provide a rapidresponse (~15 minutes) defense capability within a radius greater than 1,000 miles for the US and its allies, meaning that defense resources could be distributed in a much more economical fashion. However, the development of sustained and reusable hypersonic travel has many technical challenges owing to the extreme flow velocities, temperatures, and pressure loads imposed on the vehicle system. These technical challenges can be alleviated by delaying boundary layer transition and/or controlling the unsteadiness of shock-wave/boundary-layer interactions (SWBLIs). Thus, there is a critical research need to advance the state-of-the-art related to mechanisms that control flow disturbances for vehicles traveling at hypersonic speeds. Without satisfying this need, the full potential of hypersonic flight will remain unrealized. The overarching goal of this research is to advance the analysis, design, fabrication, and testing of novel Architected Metamaterials (AMs) that can be used for hypersonic flow control. AMs can attenuate elastic or acoustic energy by generating frequency bands where waves cannot propagate (a.k.a. bandgaps). Our central hypothesis is that the bandgaps produced by AMs can be tuned to effectively suppress flow disturbances that lead to the turbulent transition and SWBLI unsteadiness. Thus, this research will provide a critical technical achievement in support of the development of reusable and sustained hypersonic flight. Hypersonic travel is a high precision field where small changes in efficiency and performance can make the difference between a proposed technology being viable or never realized. AMs that delay boundary layer transition or reduce SWBLIs unsteadiness could revolutionize high-speed flight by reducing drag, heating, and pressure loads. This research could therefore lead to improvements in vehicle maneuverability, payload capacity, fuel efficiency, and structural durability for DoD hypersonic flight systems. This project also fits into the current efforts at UTSA to develop an aerospace engineering program. The research team will work to integrate the topics of this project into the curricula of UTSA courses. Also, it is anticipated that upwards of 10 graduate and undergraduate students will have the opportunity to participate in this research effort. The students will receive mentorship, guidance, and training from the PIs and postdoc. UTSA is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). UTSA is also a Carnegie R1 institution. Under these settings, this research will provide an ideal environment and ample opportunities to train minority students and build a diverse STEM pipeline in topics of interest for DoD. Finally, this effort will allow UTSA to develop into a leader in hypersonic and to create a lasting and impactful research capability. While the proposed work will focus on hypersonic flow control, developing this capability and research infrastructure will open avenues for new flow control research into various flow regimes of interest to the DoD (i.e., subsonic, transonic, and supersonic).
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 24, 2023
- Source ID
- W911NF2310192
Entities
People
- David Restrepo
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Office of the Secretary of Defense
- University of Texas at San Antonio