Conceptual Design of propulsion system effective for ionosphere

AE 658 Course Project

By

Amey Shrikrishna Chaudhari Chaitanya Janardan Dhande M.Naveesh Reddy Nandan Vinayak Kulkarni Tushar Pandit Jadhav Achyut Yogesh Panchal

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay January-March, 2012

Acknowledgement
We are grateful to Prof. Bhaskar Roy, Aerospace Engineering Department for his guidance in this project. His immense knowledge in this field and his constant encouragement and support has helped us understand various concepts and we look forward to more interesting work in our next project.

Contents
1. Introduction..( ) 1.1 Basic need and benefits 2. Literature Survey.( ) 2.1 Ionosphere 2.2 High altitude flying objects..( ) 3. Basic Calculations for high altitude.. ( ) 3.1 3.2 Design Point... 3.3 Take off Valdation............... 3.4 Graphs 4. Propulsion Concept.. 4.1 Results 4.2 Clark Y airfoil... 4.3 Blade Shape 4.4 Conclusion 5. Tentative design and difficulties 6. References...() 7. Acknowledgement..( )

1. Introduction
Since long time all major military aircraft manufacturing companies are trying to reduce the signature and increase the maneuverability. The reduce signature will make the tracking of the aircraft difficult and hence increase the chance of the penetration of the a/c to enemy territory. Increased maneuverability will increase the chance of saving life of pilot and safely return to home base. One of the many option is to use ionosphere so that no current tracking system can track the aircraft as RADAR doesnt work above ionosphere. So the need is to Design an aircraft propulsion system that will be able to make a short manoeuvre in the Ionosphere so that it wont be detectable by current tracking system. The proposed aircraft must have a conventional propulsion system to support normal fighter operations and must have a strong switching technology between old and new proposed propulsion system.

2. 2.1. Ionosphere

Literature Survey

The ionosphere is a part of the upper atmosphere, from about 85 km to 600 km altitude, comprising portions of the mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere, distinguished because it is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an important part in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere. It has practical importance because, among other functions, it influences radio propagation to distant places on the Earth.

The lowest part of the Earth's atmosphere, the troposphere extends from the surface to about 10 km (6.2 mi). Above 10 km is the stratosphere, followed by the mesosphere. In the stratosphere incoming solar radiation creates the ozone layer. At heights of above 80 km (50 mi), in the thermosphere, the atmosphere is so thin that free electrons can exist for short periods of time before they are captured by a nearby positive ion. The number of these free electrons is sufficient to affect radio propagation. This portion of the atmosphere is ionized and contains a plasma which is referred to as the ionosphere. In plasma, the negative free electrons and the positive ions are attracted to each other by the electromagnetic force, but they are too energetic to stay fixed together in an electrically neutral molecule.
2.2. High altitude flying object

One of the successful attempt of the high altitude flying object is spaceship-one. Spaceship One is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with suborbital flight capability that uses a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "feathering" atmospheric reentry system where the rear half of the wing and the twin tail booms folded upward along a hinge running the length of the wing; this increased drag while remaining stable.

General characteristics

Crew: one, pilot Capacity: 2 passengers Length: 28 ft (8.53 m) () Wingspan: 16 ft 5 in (8.05 m) Height: 30,000m Wing area: 161.4 ft (15 m) Empty weight: 2,640 lb (1,200 kg) Loaded weight: 7,920 lb (3,600 kg) Powerplant: 1 N2O/HTPB SpaceDev Hybrid rocket motor, 7,500 kgf (74 kN) Isp: 250 s (2450 Ns/kg) Burn time: 87 seconds Aspect Ratio: 1.6 Performance Maximum speed: Mach 3.09 (2,170 mph, 3,518 km/h) Range: 35 nm (40 mi, 65 km) Service ceiling: 367,360 ft (112,000 m) Rate of climb: 82,000 ft/min (416.6 m/s) Wing loading: 49.07 lb/ft (240 kg/m) Thrust/weight: 2.08
Spaceship One

3. Basic Calculation for the high altitude and high altitude aircrafts
We want to fly in ionosphere. At such high altitude, problems will be mainly the reason being, density very low. At this height, density will be very much low, but there will be no major change in gravity. So, to fly at this height, there are 2 options: 1. Fly by gravity 2. Fly by thrust. At this height density is 6.95 x 10-6 that is very much low, to get an aerodynamic lift equal to weight. To fly by gravity, velocity needed is g at 86 km = 9.5 m/s2 Empty weight of a/c = 1200 kg [2] If we take Mach number =3 at this height, the centrifugal force generated will be 130 N, on the other side the weight force is 13000 N. So, to fly by gravity it will have to fly at very high Mach number, most of the fuel will be consumed to reach to this Mach number. So, this option is not a good option. The only option left is to fly by giving a constant thrust vectoring, so that one component of thrust is always equal to weight, it is like always flying at a positive value of . Now at this height, conventional air breathing engines, cannot be used, mainly due to two reasons, 1. Oxygen problems 2. Due to low density, mass flow available will be very much low If you assume that normalized mass flow stays constant, at sea level and at this height also. If we calculate the ratio of

= 3.67 x 10-6

Which is very much less, so mass flow would be very much less. We need an engine for which high thrust is created but with less mass flow. It is observed that ionic combustion is very much effective, if ionic combustion is used then high thrust values can be created at low mass flow. And here in ionosphere the air is in the form of ions, so it is easier to use also. The engine details will be explained in the next chapter. Our need is to fly for a few minutes at this height, we can fly by a rocket engine, from 30 km to 86 km, and after that we should try for this new concept of engine.