According to the ibj website reported on September 3, Purdue University in the United States announced that it will spend $1.2 billion to build an aerospace exploration park, and its research direction is aimed at the hypersonic field of Mach 5 and Mach 10, which is scheduled to be completed in 2030.
Purdue Aerospace Zone can conduct a Mach 6 tested wind tunnel
"Purdue has been a global research leader for several years in certain areas where it flies at Mach 5 and Mach 10 (Mach 1 is 1x the speed of sound).
Recently, however, developing this technology has become a national priority for the United States. Over the past few years, both Russia and China have deployed their own war-ready hypersonic missiles — weapons that fly so fast that they can cover hundreds of miles in a matter of minutes with little time to intercept or cover.
As a result, the U.S. intends to vigorously develop a similar system, which has fueled the development of Purdue's Aerospace District, which costs Pratt & Whitney University at a cost of $1.2 billion and will be adjacent to the campus and, when completed in the 2030s, will have more than 400 acres of laboratories, production facilities, housing, and retail.
Previously, the 176-acre aerospace zone next to Purdue University Airport had begun to get started quickly, with its own rocket and aero-engine testing facilities (and many other facilities), a Rolls-Royce R&D Center, and a plant that makes Saab engines for the U.S. Air Force's new trainer aircraft.
However, hypersonic research is expected to be much faster.
"Purdue has a story about hypersonic speed," said Theresa Mayer, executive vice president of research and partnerships at Purdue University (in addition to supporting development and management contracts for grant applications, her office manages the university's centers, research institutes, and research cores). "We're supporting national security and defense, and hypersonic speeds are a big part of that."
While much of the work in the field is either secret, proprietary, or both, Purdue's interest in becoming a national center for the field is not. Last April, the university released a document called "purdue's next moves," outlining five strategic initiatives it plans to focus on in the coming years. In addition to advancing education, plant science, and racial equality, the 2021 list includes a national security and technology program.
"The U.S. leadership in advanced technological capabilities is shrinking relative to its strategic competitors, and swift action must be taken to reverse this trend to ensure long-term national security and economic competitiveness," the document said. ”
The four areas Purdue university has chosen to pursue are cybersecurity, secure microelectronics, high-energy materials and systems (primarily rocket and aircraft fuel and explosives), and last but not least hypersonics and spacecraft.
New testing facilities
This summer, a series of events have come together to set the final goal.
On July 27, the university and the Research Foundation announced plans to build a $41 million, 65,000-square-foot hypersonic applied research facility.
A few days later, British aero engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce also announced that it would expand its test facilities in the aerospace sector to develop high-altitude and hybrid engines for U.S. military aircraft.
Shortly thereafter, at a two-day hypersonic summit between Purdue University and the Defense Industry Association (a major coup in itself), the university announced plans with industry partners, including Rolls-Royce, to establish a test center in a hypersonic ground space zone.
The center's test facilities will include two state-of-the-art hypersonic wind tunnels and will provide highly secure workspaces where even aerospace team teams from different competing units can work with peace of mind without fear of leaking data to competitors. Purdue did not say which companies would use the site, but it is likely to be the top defense contractor in the West.
Brian Edelman, chairman of the Purdue Research Foundation, said: "Our strategy is really investing in its design, and we are working with about a dozen companies to get into the scoping phase. When we have a design that meets the needs of most people, it is open to members who will help pay for the project's funding and operating expenses. This is necessary because the scale of the project is well over $5 billion. ”
Considering that nearly 40 of the world's top hypersonic researchers are already working there, it makes sense to choose Purdue to build such a facility. The park also controls a large amount of land awaiting physical projects, which doesn't hurt either. But Edelman asserts that the group's real secret lies in its friendly business attitude and ability to act quickly.
"We brought together a group of people who are known for operating at the speed of their business," he said. "This is crucial when interacting with business groups that want to be in close proximity to university researchers and students."
For example, when Saab's deal to build U.S. Air Force trainer planes was about to strike, the company's global CEO was driving from Indianapolis to Lafayette to make a deal, but he eventually decided to adjust the plant's grounds so that Saab could "walk through the fence" at Purdue University Airport and enter the test site directly.
"We didn't actually own all the land underneath the site at the time, and we didn't get FAA approval to make such an agreement, but we were able to get everything in place in a matter of weeks." Edelman said.
Room to grow
Another key advantage enjoyed by the park is that open land is readily available, with about half of it already equipped with road and utility connections. Although the infrastructure has not yet accessed the rest, it is easy to do so (for example, compared to buildings in major urban areas).
"If a company wants to start building tomorrow, it's going to be a relatively simple thing," Edelman said of the developed areas of The Aerospace Park. "And we still have quite a bit of land, so we have a lot of opportunities to add more, a lot more factory facilities."
All of these new hypersonic jobs can bring good economic benefits to the country, and one of the earliest players was Rolls-Royce, whose relationship with Purdue Spans years.
"Rolls-Royce and Purdue University have established an efficient partnership that has lasted for decades." Warren White, head of assembly and testing at Rolls-Royce, said, "It's perfect for us to test high Mach, high altitude and hybrid. ”
In addition to becoming a consortium member that will use and manage the Hypersonic Ground Test Center, Rolls-Royce is already a campus tenant.
"We have an assembly and testing plant for electronic control, and we have employees working at zucrow propulsion labs [rocket and aero-engine test facilities]." white said. We had professors and staff working there. ”
While Rolls-Royce is also very interested in hypersonic work, it's not the only area where it uses Purdue facilities.
"These are expanding research areas, it makes sense to do this in the research park, and our long-standing relationship with Purdue University, as well as the strategy of Governor Mitch Daniels (who graduated from Purdue University) and Indiana, has repeatedly said that he wants to triple the state's defense spending," White said. Rolls-Royce stands ready to help achieve this. ”
Meyer wants to build an "ecosystem" of researchers, research facilities, and entrepreneurs who might in the future do hypersonic-related businesses in aerospace parks.
"We've come to the bottom of what we're trying to achieve and how it's good not only for our region, but for Indiana as a whole," Meyer said. "By bringing in multiple companies for testing, this will create a very dynamic center to support hypersonic speeds."
Broaden the scope of testing
But the field requires a lot of investment in researchers and facilities, because almost everything about hypersonic flight is tricky. Given the astonishing speed involved, even a minor malfunction of the aircraft would be catastrophic. In addition, because many missiles and aircraft are optimized to fly at subsonic speeds, they become vulnerable when they reach hypersonic speeds.
Mark Lewis, executive director of the Institute of Emerging Technologies at the National Defense Industry Association, said: "The reason is that an engine that is good at giving you Mach 6 cruise power may not be very good at getting you off the ground, and a key feature that a hypersonic ground test facility will bring is that it will allow us to expand the scope of testing." You can test a flying machine and a propulsion system to see if they keep you at hypersonic speeds. ”
Lewis insists that Purdue is a good place to solve many problems with hypersonic technology for other reasons.
"I look at Purdue with some reverence because they have a Gov. Mitch Daniels who declared that supporting national defense research is absolutely a top priority," he said. "And they have a dean of engineering who has said the same thing."
The dean who spoke to him was Mung Chiang, who also serves as Purdue's executive vice president of strategic planning, described this summer's activities as putting the university ahead of the curve.
"We are now a center for hypersonic research and testing in the United States," Jiang said. "It's going to be number one in the United States and maybe number one in the Western Hemisphere."