56th International Astronautical Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the International Institute of Space Law · 2005 · 34 citations · 2 references
EngineeringAerospace EngineeringMaterials EngineeringAerospace MaterialsAircraft DesignHeat TransferAerodynamic DesignAircraft Configuration DesignMachiningAerospace Surface CoatingArc Jet TestingFlightFlight Vehicle AerodynamicsHigh-mach-number AerodynamicsLeading-edge DesignThermal ConductivityWing Leading Edge Structures
The nose leading edge of the Hyper-X Mach 10 vehicle was orginally anticipated to reach temperatures near 4000 F at the leading-edge stagnation line. A SiC coated carbon/carbon (C/C) leading-edge material will not survive that extreme temperature for even a short duration single flight. To identify a suitable leading edge for the Mach 10 vehicle, arc-jet testing was performed on thirteen leading-edge segments fabricated from different material systems to evaluate their performance in a simulated flight environment. Hf, Zr, Si, and Ir based materials, in most cases as a coating on C/C, were included in the evaluation. Afterwards, MER, Tucson, AZ was selected as the supplier of the flight vehicle leading edges. The nose and the vertical and horizontal tail leading edges were fabricated out of a 3:1 biased high thermal conductivity C/C. The leading edges were coated with a three layer coating comprised of a SiC conversion of the top surface of the C/C, followed by a chemical vapor deposited layer of SiC, followed by a thin chemical vapor deposited layer of HfC. This paper will describe the fabrication of the Mach 10 C/C leading edges and the testing performed to validate performance.
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