05 - Propulsion
AEROPROPULSIVE CHARACTERIZATION OF THE HYPERSONIC CRUISER VEHICLE IN STRATOFLY PROJECT
P. Roncioni¹, L. Cutrone¹, M. Marini¹; ¹CIRA, Italy
The H2020 STRATOFLY Project is a highly-multidisciplinary project co-funded by the European Commission that combines technological and operative issues for hypersonic civil aircrafts and aims to study the feasibility of high-speed passenger stratospheric flight. The main objectives were to refine the design and the concept of operations of the former LAPCAT-II MR2.4 vehicle, and to reach the ambitious goal of TRL=6 by 2035 for the concept, considering that the crucial technologies of STRATOFLY MR3 vehicle may represent a step forward to reach the goal of future reusable space transportation systems, drastically reducing transfer time (i.e. antipodal flights in less than two to four hours), emissions and noise, and guaranteeing the required safety levels. STRATOFLY MR3 vehicle presents a highly integrated structure which is characterized by a complex waverider configuration with dorsal mounted propulsive subsystem. Aerodynamic forces and propulsive thrust are strictly interdependent and need to be calculated with complete simulations that consider both external and internal flow path and in addition the detailed combustion process and the pollutants emission.rnIn this framework an aeropropulsive characterization of the MR3 hypersonic cruiser configuration was conducted in order to mainly compute and verify the amount of thrust required at cruise conditions (Mach=8). In order to do this both engineering tools (SPREAD) and detailed CFD computations have been conducted and several configurations of the combustion chamber have been analyzed. In particular, the aim of the present activity has been the aerodynamic characterization of the isolator part of STRATOFLY combustion chamber for what concerns its effect on the combustion process and, in particular, the possible back interaction with the air flow capturing operated by means of the intake part and, in general, to verify the correct capturing of air flow. This has been characterized by simulating a configurati