Hypersonics and directed energy

Developing, validating and testing structural designs, components and materials to operate in the extremes of hypersonic flight. 
 

Competitive advantage 

• Unique in-house expertise in the design and testing of aerostructures to withstand the extreme conditions experienced by a vehicle during hypersonic flight 
• Expertise extends to both the development of numerical tools as well as the experimental methods to predict and measure the performance of structures, sub-components and materials exposed to hypersonic flight conditions 
• Measurement and test technologies cover both ground-based measurements and in-flight measurements 
   

Impact 

• Test and prediction technologies enable the increase in TRL of structural designs, sub-components and high temperature materials by exposing them dynamically to the thermal-structural conditions representative of hypersonic flight. This leads to the optimisation of vehicle designs and reduction in the requirement for expensive flight testing 
   

Successful applications 

• Expertise and technology has been successfully applied to the design and evaluation of aerostructures and subcomponents for the HyCAUSE (DARPA/AFRL/Defence Science and Technology (DST)), SCRAMSPACE (UQ-led consortium) vehicles and the onboard measurement of thermal-structural performance in-flight under the HIFiRE (DST/AFRL) and HEXA 

Testing and analysing the performance of control methods and algorithms in flow conditions that are representative of hypersonic flight. 
 

Competitive advantage 

• Technologies developed are used to test robust control algorithms on representative configurations in hypersonic flows 
• Test technologies cover both “algorithm-in-the-loop” testing in wind tunnels as well as “software-in-the-loop” testing via numerical simulation 
• Technologies can be applied to evaluate novel actuation methods such as fluidic control and fluidic thrust vectoring 
   

Impact 

• Test methodologies enable a steady progression through Technology Readiness Levels of both control algorithms and control actuation approaches by testing them dynamically in flow conditions representative of hypersonic flight 
   

Successful applications 

• Development of technologies to test both control methodologies and control actuation approaches; supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and BAE Systems 
   

Capabilities and facilities 

• High-speed wind tunnels including T-ADFA and the Supersonic Nozzle Test Facility 
• Partner facilities at USQ and HDT at the University of Oxford 
• Commercial and in-house numerical codes are utilised to predict the transient performance of control approaches and to optimise their design 

Reducing the risk of high-speed flight testing and development through the application of scaled, dynamic free-flight testing in wind tunnels. 
 

Competitive advantage 

• Pioneering the use of highly-instrumented, low-inertia, dynamically-scaled, rapidly-prototyped, models with on-board instrumentation for free-flight testing in hypersonic conditions in ground-based test facilities 
• Measurement of the aerodynamic derivatives of a design across a range of attitudes in a single experimental run using a unique combination of on-board instrumentation, including miniature inertial measurement units, in tandem with high-speed video tracking. This technique offers the unique ability to quickly validate numerically-derived aerodynamic databases using a small number of wind tunnel experiments 
• Ability to investigate high-speed separations including multi-stage separation and stores release and to quantify the associated multi-body aerodynamics 
   

Impact 

• Tunnel-based, free-flight testing helps to reduce the requirement and risks associated with expensive flight testing of high-speed vehicle designs and configurations. Tunnel-based free-flight testing allows for assessing the accuracy of numerical designs and identifying unforeseen issues using ground-based test facilities. Changes to geometric design, mass distribution and separation approach can be rapidly asse 

High-speed Mach number and angle of attack sensor for hypersonic vehicles. 
 

Competitive advantage 

• Specifically designed for sensing applications in hypersonic flight 
• The device is capable of measuring temperature, Mach number, speed and angle of attack for hypersonic vehicles 
• Spin-off technology has been patented as an air-speed sensor for subsonic vehicles 
• More stealthy and faster response rate than pitot tubes, and able to be used from subsonic to hypersonic flight domains 
• Not as susceptible to icing as standard pitot tubes 
   

Impact 

• Enhanced control of hypersonic vehicles 
• Replacement for pitot tubes in subsonic aircraft and large UAVs 
   

Successful applications 

• Flight test associated with the Australian Space Research Program “Scramspace” 
• Measured under 20 g acceleration conditions in flight 
• Subject to obtaining an export licence, a proposed flight test with the Korean Aerospace Research Organisation KAIST 
• Funding from the US Air Force 
   

Capabilities and facilities 

• In-house development of all optics, electronics and communications technologies  

World leading laser flow diagnostics. 
 

Competitive advantage 

• Unique combination of state-of-the-art shock tunnel for generating hypersonic flows and laser-based diagnostics for making precision measurements in those flows 
• Wide range of laser-based measurement technologies, including laser-induced fluorescence diode laser absorption spectroscopy and resonantly-enhanced shearing interferometry 
   

Impact 

• Design of more efficient hypersonic vehicles 
• Improved understanding of aerothermodynamic heating and drag characteristics of hypersonic vehicles 
• Testing validity of computational models 
   

Successful applications 

• Produced the world’s first two-dimensional velocity maps in hypersonic separated flows 
• Density measurements 100 times more sensitive than existing technologies 
• Fastest scanning temperature measurement technology currently in existence (1.6 million temperature measurements per second) 
• International collaboration in comparison of state-of-the-art computational methods 
• Multiple funding streams including US Air Force programs 
   

Capabilities and facilities 

• T-ADFA free-piston shock tunnel 
• YAG-pumped dye laser system 
• Diode laser absorption spectroscopy system