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03-01-2022, 09:26 AM
Stephen Chen in Beijing
Published: 9:59pm, 31 Dec, 2021
Chinese scientists say they have developed next-generation hypersonic weapons with technical breakthroughs in infrared homing technology – which the US military may not have until 2025.
Heat-seeking capability allows Chinese hypersonic missiles to home in on almost any target – including stealth aircraft, aircraft carriers and moving vehicles on the street – with unprecedented accuracy and speed
......
The first generation of hypersonic weapons were designed to penetrate missile defence systems and hit fixed targets on the ground at five times the speed of sound or faster. Although China and Russia had deployed some hypersonic missiles, a popular opinion elsewhere was that these weapons had little practical value unless a country wanted to start a nuclear war.
But conventional warfare could be transformed by a hypersonic missile being able to search for, identify and lock on to a target based on its heat signature when flying at low altitudes where the air is thicker
......
According to the US Air Force, about 90 per cent of all the aircraft it has lost since the 1980s were shot down with heat-seeking missiles, and stealth fighters such as the F-22 could also be targets because their coating materials heat up easily in flight.
......
Heat sensing at hypersonic speed is not easy
......
At high Mach numbers, the surface of a missile becomes so hot that a target’s heat signal can be overwhelmed by background noise. The infrared window would crack because no glass material could withstand the extreme heat and shock waves.
Scientists from around the world had proposed ways to lower the temperature, such as splashing liquid over the window or planting cooling tubes under the glass. Most of these ideas were ineffective or too complex
......
The Chinese scientists put an air-blowing device in front of the infrared window to generate a thin membrane of cold air, reducing the heat on the glass. Some research teams in other countries had tried this approach but failed because the cooling air could trigger strong turbulence that distorted the heat signal, giving a fuzzy, flickering and less accurate location of the target.
Yi’s team solved this problem with a number of breakthroughs. They developed a compact, lightweight device that could generate an extremely cold stream of inert gas at more than three times the speed of sound to reduce signal distortion.
They managed to squeeze 40 microvortex generators into the air-cooling device to produce air flows that could break apart the turbulence. They also developed a new mathematical model that helped them to better predict and eliminate the optical distortion as missiles accelerated and homed in on targets at wide attack angles.
......
Last February, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency asked numerous defence contractors, including General Electric and Lockheed Martin, to develop infrared sensors for hypersonic missiles.
According to their contracts, the development and testing of their sensors will take at least four years.
Full report at: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military...tech-years
Published: 9:59pm, 31 Dec, 2021
Chinese scientists say they have developed next-generation hypersonic weapons with technical breakthroughs in infrared homing technology – which the US military may not have until 2025.
Heat-seeking capability allows Chinese hypersonic missiles to home in on almost any target – including stealth aircraft, aircraft carriers and moving vehicles on the street – with unprecedented accuracy and speed
......
The first generation of hypersonic weapons were designed to penetrate missile defence systems and hit fixed targets on the ground at five times the speed of sound or faster. Although China and Russia had deployed some hypersonic missiles, a popular opinion elsewhere was that these weapons had little practical value unless a country wanted to start a nuclear war.
But conventional warfare could be transformed by a hypersonic missile being able to search for, identify and lock on to a target based on its heat signature when flying at low altitudes where the air is thicker
......
According to the US Air Force, about 90 per cent of all the aircraft it has lost since the 1980s were shot down with heat-seeking missiles, and stealth fighters such as the F-22 could also be targets because their coating materials heat up easily in flight.
......
Heat sensing at hypersonic speed is not easy
......
At high Mach numbers, the surface of a missile becomes so hot that a target’s heat signal can be overwhelmed by background noise. The infrared window would crack because no glass material could withstand the extreme heat and shock waves.
Scientists from around the world had proposed ways to lower the temperature, such as splashing liquid over the window or planting cooling tubes under the glass. Most of these ideas were ineffective or too complex
......
The Chinese scientists put an air-blowing device in front of the infrared window to generate a thin membrane of cold air, reducing the heat on the glass. Some research teams in other countries had tried this approach but failed because the cooling air could trigger strong turbulence that distorted the heat signal, giving a fuzzy, flickering and less accurate location of the target.
Yi’s team solved this problem with a number of breakthroughs. They developed a compact, lightweight device that could generate an extremely cold stream of inert gas at more than three times the speed of sound to reduce signal distortion.
They managed to squeeze 40 microvortex generators into the air-cooling device to produce air flows that could break apart the turbulence. They also developed a new mathematical model that helped them to better predict and eliminate the optical distortion as missiles accelerated and homed in on targets at wide attack angles.
......
Last February, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency asked numerous defence contractors, including General Electric and Lockheed Martin, to develop infrared sensors for hypersonic missiles.
According to their contracts, the development and testing of their sensors will take at least four years.
Full report at: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military...tech-years
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