Chapter 1341 Why does your missile look like an airplane?

Of course, the follow-up work regarding CTK series propellants and long-range air defense missiles was still left to Lin Chenggang and Shen Fangzhong.

Chang Haonan:

"I have a lot of things to do. I want to focus on hypersonic weapons!"

……

In fact, after the theory of waverider configuration in a wide speed range was proposed and verified, the gliding hypersonic project has entered a relatively fast lane.

However, there is always a need for a transition stage from theoretical research to engineering development.

This allowed Chang Haonan to take a few days out of his busy schedule and return to the Torch Laboratory to solve a small problem.

But after this, the work intensity of the entire R&D team will reach a new level.

The most critical issue, of course, is the design of the waverider configuration.

Although the overall plan for wide-speed domain design has been determined, the entire project team, including Chang Haonan himself, is still somewhat confused about how to implement it and some of the details.

The initial and most basic idea is to fix the upper surface of the waverider and change the contour of the lower surface through a disposable fairing to adapt to different speeds.

Simple and intuitive.

But it's a tricky choice.

Because it all comes down to optimizing the aerodynamic characteristics in different speed ranges by prefabricating multiple configurations in advance.

If one of the configurations is picked out alone, its scope of application is still relatively narrow.

Of course, there is a more direct question.

In general, the faster the waverider's flying speed, the more convex the corresponding optimal compression surface contour is.

However, if a disposable fairing is used, the lower surface can only be convex on the outside and flat on the inside due to the problem of space utilization.

That is, a raised fairing wraps around a relatively flat fixed lower surface.

Corresponding to the flight process of first fast and then slow.

There is no problem using it in the verification stage.

But if it is put into use just like that, it will still be somewhat rigid.

Although the missile does have to slow down at the end in order to improve the accuracy of the hit, and generally follows the trend of first fast and then slow, the speed of a gliding hypersonic missile is not constant during the process of flying in a "water drift" trajectory, but there will be multiple conversions of kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy.

The fairing can be thrown away when decelerating, but when accelerating, there is no way to pick up the discarded fairing and reinstall it, so the adaptability of the whole process is still not ideal.

What's more, Chang Haonan's long-term ambition is to turn the waverider configuration into a reusable aircraft, which requires a long and gradual acceleration process.

Therefore, this design was ultimately used as a backup plan.

If all other designs are proven to have problems later, then we should take it out to at least ensure that the entire project has a beginning and an end.

"Since the disposable fairing is not flexible enough, what if it is designed to be variable?"

Fu Changsheng, director of the overall design department, suggested this almost immediately afterwards.

"Variable?"

This ranking obviously exceeded the expectations of most people present.

Xing Muchun also said half jokingly:

"Director Fu, is this considered... not forgetting your original intention?"

Like Chang Haonan, Fu Changsheng also comes from the aviation field. In his early years, he participated in the development of the Q-6 aircraft and the reverse mapping of the MiG-23 fighter.

Coming from someone who has had such experience, Xing Muchun's evaluation of variable structural design is indeed appropriate.

For a moment, even the tense atmosphere in the conference room was diluted a lot.

“That’s right, if you must.”

Fu Changsheng also smiled and touched the top of his head:

"There are indeed some influences from the early years..."

At this point, he suddenly made a turn:

"But I am absolutely serious about this plan."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone who was laughing and talking became serious again.

"Although I did hear that the 611 Institute plans to use flexible skin to make the bulge of the fourth-generation aircraft DSI air intake, it can only be adjusted within a relatively small range... The two lower surfaces of our wide-speed range waverider are quite different. It is unlikely to be achieved by adjusting the skin alone, right?"

Fu Changsheng glanced at Chang Haonan, who was sitting in the main seat, and saw that the latter was also listening attentively, so he continued with confidence:

"I have also considered flexible skin materials, but they are sensitive to temperature and cannot support the thermal and aerodynamic loads under hypersonic conditions, so a mechanical structure is still needed... For example, a waverider-like body can be combined with a retractable diamond wing. When flying at relatively low speeds, the wing can be extended to provide lift together with the lower surface. At high speeds, the wing can be retracted inside to become a pure waverider configuration."

Jiang Zonglin, who was only showing up and not involved in the design work in principle, couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable:

"Are you really going to make a variable-sweep wing?"

The F14 and Tu-160 obtained through different channels have made up for the small shortcoming that China has never been equipped with variable-sweep wing aircraft.

But if we really want to develop a variable-sweep wing flying vehicle in the 21st century, and it’s a hypersonic one…

It’s still a bit abstract when you think about it.

"If you insist on calling it a variable-sweep wing, that's correct, but it's not a traditional sliding-sleeve structure."

Fu Changsheng explained:

"For example, some mechanical metamaterials can show different morphological transformation characteristics when subjected to tension in different directions, which is very suitable for making wing structures with only two morphological changes..."

"..."

For a moment, everyone engaged in a heated and exciting debate about this plan, which sounded a little outrageous but seemed quite reasonable upon closer thought.

Until Chang Haonan cleared his throat and prepared to speak.

The meeting room suddenly became quiet.

"I happened to be doing some research on computational materials recently... Although mechanical metamaterials are a popular research direction recently, research on specific applications has just started. For us, the risks brought by new technologies are really too great..."

In fact, there is no need to continue discussing this point.

If even Academician Chang says that the risk of your plan is a bit high, then it must be really high.

Therefore, no one responded and waited for his further remarks.

"Sometimes, there's no need to over-complicate things..."

Sure enough, Chang Haonan said slowly:

"We can be more direct and combine the waveriders with high and low design Mach numbers. One part uses a hypersonic waverider designed for cruise conditions, and the other part uses a low-speed waverider that meets the takeoff acceleration requirements. An adapter is used to connect the two..."

"Then the trailing edge lines of the upper and lower surfaces of the waverider front body are stretched horizontally to form the main body, and the left and right sides are equipped with waverider wings. The lower surface of the fuselage is treated with a compressed surface, and an inclined tail is added..."

As his ideas gradually matured, the entire project team finally started to work at full speed.

Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of members of the design department, the project plan was finally put off the design drawing before the end of 2007.

However, there is still one last task to be completed before the actual test launch.

Since the gliding hypersonic missile has no power of its own and is completely dependent on a ballistic missile to provide it with sufficient initial speed and altitude, in addition to its own development work, it is also necessary to coordinate with the missile research and development department, and of course the indispensable Second Artillery Force, just like the earlier development of the double-cone verification missile.

After all, due to its size, gliding hypersonic missiles can basically only be equipped to specialized missile units.

As the commander of the Second Artillery, Jing Zhiyuan had been waiting for this moment.

For this purpose, he also took some time to make up for some of the relevant knowledge about waveriders and hypersonic aircraft.

Although I didn't quite understand it in the end, at least I had some basic concepts.

Jing Zhiyuan was confident that no matter what plan Chang Haonan came up with, he would not be too shocked.

However, when he actually arrived at Huairou Science City and saw the 3D rendered diagram on the other party's presentation PPT...

All the preparations seemed so pale and powerless at this moment.

"Academician Chang..."

Jing Zhiyuan couldn't help but take a deep breath:

"How come your missile is designed to look like an airplane?"