China has developed a contra-rotary ramjet engine that enables seamless flight from standstill to hypersonic speeds.
  • tehn00bi@lemmy.world
    5·
    5 hours ago

    Jianzhong stated the contra-rotary compressor is the main innovation behind the system’s architecture. Because the high- and low-pressure rotors spin in opposite ways, the engine maintains relative speed and reduces absolute rotational speed, thus lowering centrifugal forces on blades and discs.

    Well that’s interesting

    • Dave.@aussie.zone
      9·
      7 hours ago

      Bet it isn’t more than 15 minutes before pieces of metal come out.

      That’s just a materials engineering problem at that point.

      And does it really matter if your mach 6 hypersonic missile only has a 1500km range before its engine blows up? Still rather handy to have a few around.