Preliminary design of a nanosatellite launch vehicle using scramjet technology
scramjet, supersonic combustion, aerospace vehicle, nanosatellites
This Master's Qualify presents a preliminary design of an aerospace vehicle, using hypersonic airbreathing propulsion based on supersonic combustion (scramjet technology), for atmospheric flight at 20 km altitude, at hypersonic speed, corresponding to the Mach number5.79. Scramjet is an aeronautical engine without moving parts, where the aerospace vehicle integrated with scramjet technology (propulsion system) must be coupled to a rocket engine. The current means of access to space is limited by the chemical propulsion system (solid and/or liquid fuel) carried onboard rockets. The technology of supersonic combustion (scramjet) is being studied as an airbreathing propulsion system, to be used in the dense layers of the Earth's atmosphere, to access space. A demonstrator is being designed to be coupled to the Sonda III rocket engine, to operate as a second stage, with no need to use a rocket engine during the flight in atmospheric layers between 20 km and 60 km in altitude. The theory of oblique shock waves, the theory of heat addition in one-dimensional flow (Rayleigh's theory), and the theory of expansion waves (by Prandtl-Meyer) coupled to the area ratio is applied in the design of the compression sections, of combustion and expansion, respectively, of the scramjet demonstrator with internal compression configuration. Steady-state, one-dimensional flow, and air under calorically perfect gas conditions will be considered. Thermodynamic properties (pressure, temperature, density, speed of sound) and flow velocity (Mach number) will be presented along the streamline from the leading edge to the trailing edge of the demonstrator, considering flow without and with boundary layer effects, for the conditions of no fuel burning (power-off) and with fuel-burning (power-on).