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 @aiaa arc.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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More from @DrChrisCombs

30 Jun
I posted this thread on the @ReactionEngines SABRE combined-cycle engine 1 year ago and thought I would provide a quick update

As we predicted, the most immediate impact has been the spin-off of some of the subsystems

For example, the @ReactionEngines heat exchanger was recently integrated into the UK/@esa National Space Propulsion Facility
aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/engine-te…
There have also been recent successful tests of the HX3 micro tube heat exchanger and the hydrogen preburner subsystems

I’ll be honest this is really impressive progress in a COVID year IMO and exceeded my expectations
aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/engine-te…
Read 4 tweets
28 Jun
🌪From the weekend, this is one of the most violent tornado videos I think I’ve ever seen🌪

This was from a tornado outbreak in, of all places, the Czech Republic

The way those trees topple over is unbelievable. That is some incredible wind speed
From a bit further away, this gives you some perspective on the strength of this storm and the level of danger present in the first video

This is the scene afterwards, it looks like a bomb went off. Really bad situation

Read 9 tweets
27 May
There’s been a lot of confusion centered around this (very cool) video of yesterday’s Falcon 9 launch so I wanted to jump in and clear some things up

Short thread…
#AvGeek #Falcon9 #SpaceX @elonmusk
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
Read 10 tweets
22 Apr
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
Read 18 tweets
20 Apr
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

🎥
📄 web.stanford.edu/group/ctr/ResB…
So back to the review paper, a bunch of these figures caught my attention

First up since we’re already on scramjets, a great illustration of a combined-cycle turboramjet + dual-mode scramjet

Gets you from takeoff to Mach 10!

📄 annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.114…
Read 8 tweets
2 Apr
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
Read 13 tweets

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