SUPERSONIC COMBUSTION RAMJET MISSILE

During the period of 1962-1978, the Applied Physics Laboratory of John s Hopkins University developed the technology for a family of missiles named SCRAM for use as fleet defense weapons. SCRAM is the acronym fo r supersonic combustion ramjet missile, The development work began wit h the conceptual design of two missile configurations and calculations of the expected performance for a variety of missions to provide defe nse for the surface fleet. A novel class of multinodule fixed-geometry hypersonic inlets was designed and wind-tunnel models were built and tested at Mach numbers of 4-10 at angles of attack up to 15 deg, Injec tor and combustor development was carried out in direct connect test a pparatus, Considerable effort was directed to the development and test ing of a wide variety of storable, reactive liquid fuels including bor anes and aluminum alkyls. Many new testing techniques and diagnostic i nstruments were developed that are still key elements of scramjet test operations. The program culminated with the testing of the entire eng ine in free jets at Mach numbers of 57.3 and the design of a family of revised vehicle configurations that could exploit the full capability of the performance observed in the ground test program. This article presents the highlights of the technology program and references recen tly released documents.