Thermal Analysis of Prismatic Core Sandwich Structural Panel for Hypersonic Application

Hypersonic flight vehicles have potential applications in strategic defence, space missions, and future civilian high-speed transportation systems. However, structural integration has significant challenges due to extreme aero-thermo-mechanical coupled effects. Scramjet-powered air-breathing hypersonic vehicles experience extreme heat loads induced by combustion, shock waves and viscous heat dissipation. An active cooling thermal protection system for scramjet applications has the highest potential for thermal load management, especially for long-duration flights, considering the weight penalty associated with the heavier passive thermal insulation structures. We consider the case of active cooling of scramjet engine structural walls with endothermic hydrocarbon fuel. We have developed a semi-analytical quasi-2D heat transfer model considering a prismatic core single cooling channel segment as a representative volume element (RVE) to analyse larger-scale problems. The model includes various mechanisms of heat transfer as well as the coolant’s energy transport (non-cracking fuel). Using this model, we aim to study the effect of active cooling on the system's thermal behaviour and heat transfer characteristics. The model predicts the temperature distribution in the channel and the interfaces. Parametric analysis is undertaken to assess the active cooling system design parameters which affect the heat transfer characteristics of the system. Such semi-analytical models help investigate the effect of the cooling channel geometry and flow parameters, which can be a decisive prerequisite to the configuration design of a scramjet engine.