Preliminary design of a hypersonic air-breathing vehicle

Abstract

This paper describes the capabilities of a new in-house code, named SPREAD 2.0, to provide real time guidance to select the optimal parameters for preliminary design of hypersonic propulsion systems. Such a new solver drastically reduces the time and costs associated with excessive use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and/or experimental tests. The accuracy of the model has been assessed by comparing the results with a 2-D CFD simulation performed with the C3NS-CIRA code. Finally, SPREAD 2.0 has been used to address the influence of air/fuel equivalence ratios and of craft angles of attack on the thermodynamic variables, which in turn affect the design, and on the pollutant emissions.