China builds world's fastest wind tunnel to test weapons that could strike US in mins

[Tennis]

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/15/chin...4-minutes.html

China is building the world's fastest wind tunnel to simulate hypersonic flight at speeds of up to 12 kilometres per second.

A hypersonic vehicle flying at this speed from China could reach the west coast of the United States in less than 14 minutes.

Zhao Wei, a senior scientist working on the project, said researchers aimed to have the facility up and running by around 2020 to meet the pressing demand of China's hypersonic weapon development programme.

"It will boost the engineering application of hypersonic technology, mostly in military sectors, by duplicating the environment of extreme hypersonic flights, so problems can be discovered and solved on the ground," said Zhao, a deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of High Temperature Gas Dynamics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

The ground tests will significantly reduce the risk of failure when test flights of hypersonic aircraft start.

The world's most powerful wind tunnel at present is America's LENX-X facility in Buffalo, New York state, which operates at speeds of up to 10 kilometres per second – 30 times the speed of sound.

Hypersonic aircraft are defined as vehicles that travel of speeds of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, or above.

The US military tested HTV-2, a Mach 20 unmanned aircraft in 2011 but the hypersonic flight lasted only a few minutes before the vehicle crashed in to the Pacific Ocean.

In March China conducted seven successful test flights of its hypersonic glider WU-14, also known as the DF-ZF, at speeds of between Mach 5 and Mach 10.

Other countries including Russia, India and Australia have also tested some early prototypes of the aircraft, which could be used to deliver missiles including nuclear weapons.

"China and the US have started a hypersonic race," said Wu Dafang, professor at the school of aeronautic science and engineering at Beihang University in Beijing who received a national technology award for the invention of a new heat shield used on hypersonic vehicles in 2013.

Wu has worked on the development of hypersonic cruise missiles, a near space vehicle, high-speed drones and other possible weapons for the People's Liberation Army.

He said there were a number of hypersonic wind tunnels in mainland China which had helped ensure the high success rate of its hypersonic weapon tests.

The new wind tunnel will be "one of the most powerful and advanced ground test facilities for hypersonic vehicles in the world", said Wu, who was not involved in the project.

"This is definitely good news for us. I look forward to its completion," he added.

In the new tunnel there will be a test chamber with room for relatively large aircraft models with a wing span of almost three metres.

To generate an airflow at extremely high speeds, the researchers will detonate several tubes containing a mixture of oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen gases for a series of explosions that could discharge one gigawatt of power within a split second, according to Zhao.

This is more than half of the total power generation capacity of the Daya Bay nuclear power plant in Guangdong.

The shock waves, channelled into the test chamber through a metallic tunnel, will envelope the prototype vehicle and increase the temperature over its body to 8,000 Kelvins, or 7,727 degrees Celsius, Zhao said.

That is nearly 50 per cent hotter than the surface of the Sun.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/15/chin...4-minutes.html

Wow hopefully nobody starts a war with China because this could turn ugly. Interesting how they spend so much less on the military yet are so advanced.

[Deleted]

Believe it when you see it, so far no one has seen any of these wonder weapons.

[Hypasonic]

Will this technology increase the "space race" or is it only for earth-based use? Would hope it for the former, would be a better use of resources atleast.

[Tiwack]

I'll set my alarm to remind me to be scared in 50 years. Assuming our robot overlords don't intercept it.

[Deleted]

It's because what China does is efficient, although morally questioned.

[Lynarii]

Will this technology increase the "space race" or is it only for earth-based use? Would hope it for the former, would be a better use of resources atleast.

Earth-based for the most part. Space does have winds of a sort, but they're not the type that is simulated by a hypersonic wind tunnel on earth. Though some of the same technology used to protect hypersonic vehicles (like advances in heat shielding) could also be used in spacecraft.

[yetgdhfgh]

So China has joined the MAD club so what?

[Rustedsaint]

Meh The USA is already testing hyper sonic weapons already

[Daedius]

Chinese products... pft!

[yetgdhfgh]

I miss the days when China was a backward country ruled by a maniac that killed most of its population!

[Daevelian]

Prepare for waves of americans denying that anyone could come close to their glorious american might.

[xuros]

They will build the missiles with cheaply produced parts and it will fall apart in flight. (lol)

Seriously though. If they ever launched on the US the response would just mean both sides wipes each other out in a giant fireball. Nothing will come of it.

- - - Updated - - -

Prepare for waves of americans denying that anyone could come close to their glorious american might.

Nobodies come close yet.

[yetgdhfgh]

Military power is obsolete now its all about economic and cyber power now!

Any tin pot country can make nukes now its all about economic power and cyber power to manipulate opinion and to attack infrastructure!

[Daevelian]

Nobodies come close yet.

That you know of. Not everybody is a saturday morning cartoon villain like north korea, announcing their plans and their abilities well in advance.

[Zmaniac17]

Military power is obsolete now its all about economic and cyber power now!

Any tin pot country can make nukes now its all about economic power and cyber power to manipulate opinion and to attack infrastructure!

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's obsolete. For instance what do you do if another countries military takes 100 miles of land at your border. Start a nuclear war? Nukes are a deterrent but they are also a last resort and that means that you can't use them every time you get poked in the eye. You can see this playing out in Crimea.

[xuros]

That you know of. Not everybody is a saturday morning cartoon villain like north korea, announcing their plans and their abilities well in advance.

You watch too much tv. With how deep the US has spies in most nations, its hard to keep big military secrets these days.

[Frolk]

You watch too much tv. With how deep the US has spies in most nations, its hard to keep big military secrets these days.

You should maybe not wear an tinfoil hat THAT tight around ur head, it might hurt blood flow

[yetgdhfgh]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's obsolete. For instance what do you do if another countries military takes 100 miles of land at your border. Start a nuclear war? Nukes are a deterrent but they are also a last resort and that means that you can't use them every time you get poked in the eye. You can see this playing out in Crimea.

Well iam talking about western countries and countries that have significance (IE has mineral worth or economic worth)

Nobody will ever try to invade the US, Russia, China, UK or any EU country or middle east country of any significance as for the rest nobody gives a flying fuck about as long as they can give money so we can give them weapons.

Way of the world unfortunately

[Zmaniac17]

not to mention the fact low flying weapons have to burn a lot of fuel traveling at hypersonic speeds due to wind resistance. Now for civilian research I can see the merit. For weapons testing....not so much.

That depends on what you mean by low. Scram Jets don't have an oxidizer so they rely on compressed air being forced through the engine to keep running. This means that they can only run in the lower atmosphere.

Darpa is working on hypersonic vehicles so it's definitely a military interest. Personally I think the best reason to research them is because there is a lot we don't know about in regards to hypersonic flight and scram jets.

An interesting use for them could be to rendezvous with a rotating space tether to lift payloads into orbit. That could potentially make it much cheaper to get into space. Of course you could use rockets to do this as well but we wouldn't know how cheaply we can make Scram-jets operate until we do the research.

[Deleted]

Am I the only one awaiting Skroe to come around and explain this in great and interesting detail?