Hey @TelegraphNews the correct answer to your poll is "none of the above" because hypersonic speed isn't defined by Mach number, it's about changes in flow chemistry, heating, thin shock/entropy layers, etc.
@TelegraphNews One of my favorite graphics summarizing what truly defines hypersonic flow, from J. Anderson's "Hypersonic and high-temperature gas dynamics"
Hypersonics is definitely having a moment as part of the zeitgeist (seems to happen once or twice a year), but for everyone reporting on this stuff I wish the opening chapter to the Anderson hypersonic text were required reading
It's not too technical and is so informative
For starters, maybe people would learn that the first hypersonic flight was the Bumper rocket in 1949
Plus, you get historical context for a variety of hypersonic vehicle concepts of yore (I see you Dynasoar!)
And circling back to the misinformed @TelegraphNews poll, you get your answer to the question "What is hypersonic flow?"
Answer: it depends, but you shouldn't just rely on Mach number
@TelegraphNews So, all you technical writers out there that are writing articles on hypersonics this week: do yourself a favor and buy a copy of Anderson's seminal hypersonic text from @aiaaarc.aiaa.org/doi/book/10.25…
I'm relieved to see that the responses to the poll are echoing the sentiments of Phil Roe
(sorry I begrudgingly picked M5 just to see the results)
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For starters, I recommend checking out this earlier thread I wrote on vapor cones and expansion fans as a lot of relevant points are covered there, so I won’t circle back to everything
This should explain the *transonic* vapor collar close to the rocket
Okay, so the audio in the original video is misleading. This event happened at about 9km altitude, so any wave generated at that instant would reach the ground roughly 30sec later. Not sure how the audio was synced but if it’s real time from the ground, it’s coincidental
It's been a tough semester for everybody, so to lighten the mood and provide some extra credit points I posted a meme challenge to my fluid mechanics class
The submissions were BRILLIANT
Sit back and enjoy this nerdy fluids meme thread. Our @UTSA students rock #AcademicChatter
There were so many hilarious submissions (over 100!!) so I unfortunately can't highlight them all, but there are some that literally made me LOL
This one is a bit niche perhaps, but it was the perfect mix of educational, weird, and original that it made me laugh harder than perhaps all the rest
Came across a ram/scramjet review paper from the Stanford Center for Turbulence Research & it is an absolute treasure trove of wonderful illustrations related to hypersonics
A quick thread of my favorites, but first I got distracted w this simulation of scramjet combustion
Here’s a closer look at that animation, with links to the paper and YouTube source
What you’re seeing is an overlay of temperature, density gradient (analogous to schlieren), and velocity in a scramjet cavity at Mach 6.5
NASA just released some interesting preliminary data from their instrumentation onboard the #Mars2020 lander that delivered #Perseverance
Here’s a quick thread w some thoughts
[TLDR: Mars entry is HOT, but we made the heat shield too big (again)]
So to start, let’s turn back the clock to 2012. While you were watching The Walking Dead and the London Olympics, the good folks at NASA were measuring the aerothermal environment of Mars entry for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL Curiosity) mission
They did this with an instrumentation suite called “MEDLI” which stands for Mars Entry, Descent, & Landing Instrumentation
This contained, among other things, a bunch of heat transfer, pressure, and temperature measurement devices in and around the MSL heat shield