EXPERIMENTS ON CRUISE PROPULSION WITH A HYDROGEN SCRAMJET

Measurements of drag have been made, in a shock tunnel, on a simple in tegrated vehicle-engine combination for hypersonic cruise with hydroge n scramjet propulsion. The test flow Mach number was 6.4, and the velo city was 2.45 kms(-1). Zero drag, which is the necessary condition for cruise, was achieved as the equivalence ratio approached one. It was found that an analysis using established aerodynamic concepts was adeq uate for predicting drag in the case of no combustion. When combustion occurred results of direct connect experiments provided a qualitative guide to the measured levels of drag, and indicated that thrust nozzl e combustion was taking place. An heuristic analysis is used to point to the important effect this may have on propulsive lift.