The “national heavy equipment” passed the acceptance inspection! The results of Qian Xuesen and Guo Yonghuai’s “strategic deployment” decades ago finally came to fruition

Recently, in the Huairou Science City in Beijing, the JF-22 hypersonic wind tunnel, a national treasure, has just passed acceptance, attracting great attention.

What is a wind tunnel?

During the development of various aircraft, a large number of simulated flight experiments are required, but it is impossible to actually take the aircraft into the air for frequent test flights, so wind tunnels came into being. The high-speed airflow generated by wind tunnels can be used to simulate the flight environment of aircraft, so that the force conditions of aircraft during high-speed movement can be studied in advance, avoiding repeated engineering tests and saving time and effort.

A wind tunnel is equivalent to artificially building a "flying sky" on the ground. It is an indispensable large-scale aerodynamic experimental device for the development of aircraft.

Wind tunnels are important facilities for modern aviation research and aircraft design. Their construction capacity represents the level of development of a country's aerospace technology. It is often said that advanced aircraft and other aircraft are "blown" out in advanced wind tunnels.

The world's most advanced high-speed wind tunnel

How powerful is it?

The JF-22 hypersonic wind tunnel, also known as the detonation-driven hypersonic high-enthalpy shock wave wind tunnel, is 167 meters long and has world-leading performance indicators, providing strong support for the development of space shuttle systems and hypersonic aircraft.

As the cradle for developing a new generation of aircraft, the JF-22 hypersonic wind tunnel can reproduce flight conditions at altitudes of 40 to 90 kilometers and a maximum speed of 10 kilometers per second, equivalent to about 30 times the speed of sound .

According to Jiang Zonglin, a researcher at the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the person in charge of the Huairou shock wave wind tunnel project:

The flow field blown by the JF -22 is about 2.5 meters in diameter. Generally, the largest one abroad is 1.5 meters in diameter, which can accommodate larger aircraft.

When the Mach number is 10, the JF-22 can reach 40 milliseconds, which is several times higher than the advanced level of similar domestic and foreign counterparts, and the accuracy of the experimental results is also higher ;

The JF -22 has high total temperature, high total pressure and high performance, and currently no other wind tunnel in the world can compare with it. CCTV concluded that the JF-22 super-high-speed wind tunnel that has completed acceptance and is officially in operation is currently the most advanced super-high-speed wind tunnel in the world.

Aiming at the technology of round-trip flight between the earth and the sky

According to CCTV, the research and development goal of the JF-22 hypersonic wind tunnel is to address the country's major needs in the field of earth-to-space round-trip flight technology and the cutting-edge exploration of high-temperature gas dynamics, and to solve the experimental research problems of hypersonic flight technology.

Previously, the JF-12 re-enactment wind tunnel successfully developed in 2012 was 265 meters long and was the largest and most advanced shock wave wind tunnel in the world at that time. Today, the JF-12 re-enactment wind tunnel and the JF-22 hypersonic wind tunnel are the largest and most advanced shock wave wind tunnels in their respective fields, making China the only country in the field of hypersonics that has the experimental capability to cover all "flight corridors".

In addition, the scientific research team will also use the shock wave wind tunnel experimental platform to carry out research on gliding vehicles, earth-to-space round-trip vehicles, multi-stage orbital vehicles, etc., to support and serve the major needs and key technology research in the country's hypersonic science and technology field.

"National Heavy Equipment" passed the acceptance

Qian Xuesen made an indelible contribution to the construction

As early as August 2021, CCTV Military Channel introduced the JF-22 wind tunnel that was under construction at the time. As an important scientific research project in the field of ultra-high-speed wind tunnels in China, the construction of this wind tunnel has gone through years of hard work and scientific research. Mr. Qian Xuesen, as one of the founders of China's aerospace industry, played an important role in it.

In the 1950s and 1960s, in response to my country's national defense needs and the international technological competition, scientists such as Qian Xuesen and Guo Yonghuai proposed a strategic development plan for hypersonic shock tunnels. They recognized the importance of hypersonic technology in military and civilian fields and resolutely promoted my country's research and development in this field.

Under the strategic deployment of Qian Xuesen and Guo Yonghuai, the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences established China's first hypersonic shock wave wind tunnel scientific research team. The team abandoned the internationally accepted technology at the time and, through decades of technical research, found a new way to achieve theoretical innovation in explosion-driven driving .

In the future, what major R&D projects will this important platform launch?

Jiang Zonglin introduced that the JF-12 reproduction wind tunnel and the JF-22 super-high-speed wind tunnel can achieve experimental conditions of 1.5-3km per second and 3-10km per second respectively, together forming an aerodynamic experimental platform covering Mach numbers of 5-25 and flight altitudes of 25-90km.

He said that by using Mach 10, for example, more than 100 atmospheres of pressure and 40 milliseconds of experimental time, hypersonic engine tests can be conducted. "Our laboratory has proposed a new type of engine, called the stationary oblique detonation engine. Now we have achieved Mach 7 to Mach 9 with the JF-12. Now it seems that our new engine has a higher thermal efficiency than traditional engines, which is 50% higher and has stable combustion. The JF-22 is going to go from Mach 9 to Mach 16. If such an engine is completed, I think it will be a great boost to our country's next step in aerospace technology."

In addition, the scientific research team will also use the shock wave wind tunnel experimental platform to carry out research on gliding vehicles, earth-to-space round-trip vehicles, multi-stage orbital vehicles, etc., to support and serve the major needs and key technology research in the country's hypersonic science and technology field.

Comprehensive sources: Xinhua News Agency, CCTV News, CCTV Military, etc.