The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master

Chapter 1312 Risk Control

As for Collinger's concerns, Diamond, as an old friend, saw through almost immediately:

“In fact, in addition to LENS-X, which is being upgraded from LENS-2, we also plan to develop a newer generation LENS-XX wind tunnel from scratch, combining a new gas drive and expansion system, using electrically heated hydrogen instead of helium as the drive Gas, under the dual-stage drive technology, can reach an experimental air flow speed of Mach number 25 and a total air flow temperature of 7500K, and the effective test time is not less than 10ms..."

It sounded very attractive at first, but the former was not distracted by these words at all, but simply rolled his eyes:

"Your modification of LENS-X will not be completed until the middle of next year. Build a brand new one..."

He glanced at the two giant wind tunnels lying downstairs through the floor-to-ceiling windows at one end of the control room, then leaned into Diamond's ear and lowered his voice:

"Even if you don't mention technology first, I'm afraid it will be difficult to solve the location problem, right?"

Buffalo has a population of less than 400,000, so it is not considered a big city. However, the research center was originally located on the shores of Lake Erie in order to solve the water problem. However, the subsequent expansion project faced numerous challenges from environmental groups, fishery companies, and waterway unions. Obstacle—

Although the water quality of the Great Lakes has already suffered a catastrophic deterioration, and the fisheries along the lakes have been severely hit as a result, this does not prevent relevant practitioners from requesting "pollution control funds" that can easily reach hundreds of millions from the research center.

As a non-profit academic institution, it is obviously difficult for Karlspan University to raise such a huge amount of funds in a short period of time.

Moreover, everyone knows that these fees, no matter how nominal they are, are essentially equivalent to protection fees.

Even if multi-party financing is used for the first time, there will inevitably be a second and third time in the future, which will not solve the problem at all.

But Diamond shook his head:

"It's really not possible here...but we have cooperated with MIT to obtain the use rights of a new piece of land in Boston, and plan to build the LENS-XX wind tunnel in the future Boston Research Center..."

Collinger seemed a little surprised by this news, but it was only fleeting:

"Forget it...it's useless to talk about this."

He sighed, and for the first time he looked a little tired:

"As you can tell from the name, your new wind tunnel is most likely driven by heating light gas... Even if it can reproduce a very high flight Mach number, it is subject to the innate limitations of the mechanical power, high airflow total temperature and long test time. I can only take care of one or the other..."

At this point, he suddenly paused:

"Speaking of which, I read the monthly technical information summary issued by the company a few days ago. It said that based on the amount of electricity consumption and chemical reagent purchases, it seems that China has increased the frequency of use of their wind tunnel cluster in the suburbs of Beijing?"

In fact, most of the useful information is not obtained through the wonderful plot of Infernal Affairs, but through speculation of various low-sensitivity or even public peripheral information.

Especially after entering the information age, it is even more difficult to keep general information completely confidential.

Diamond glanced at Collinger with a slightly strange look, but still replied:

"Since about the beginning of this year, the Chinese people have become active... However, they have stopped cooperating with Yashen University of Technology, and they no longer even participate in the AIAA evaluation system, so for the time being it can only be estimated that they are promoting new ones. Wind Tunnel Project.”

"According to the latest information update obtained by AIAA two years ago, the other party was developing a long-duration shock wave wind tunnel and a high-precision recurrence wind tunnel. The calculation time should have reached the stage of starting construction..."

"What about the performance? How is the performance?"

Collinger was clearly more concerned with practicality.

And Diamond was very candid:

"Technically speaking, it is more advanced than LENS-2 or even LENS-X... To a certain extent, the reason why we are rushing to advance the LENS-XX project is to catch up with the progress of these Chinese counterparts."

As an expert in high-temperature gas dynamics, he does not avoid the fact that the United States has lagged behind in the field of ultra-high-speed wind tunnels.

However, there is still a lack of correct understanding of the severity of this reality...

Therefore, seeing the horror on Collinger's face, Diamond quickly added:

"But you don't have to worry too much... Since they decided to put long test time and high reproducibility in two wind tunnels, they should still focus on technical verification. They will need to combine these two technologies later to get the results. We will produce truly next-generation applied products, so at least for a few years, the data we have accumulated through equivalent simulation combined with test flights will be unique..."

“…”

…

Under the dual urging of large amounts of funds and DDL, the X51A project is moving forward with unprecedented efficiency, even giving older people like Collinger the illusion of returning to the peak of the Cold War. While the Buffalo Research Center's ultra-high-speed wind tunnel is conducting final verification of the two-stage kiss-cut cone waverider scheme, testing of the rocket's powered boost section is also simultaneously underway at Boeing's Wilmington test center.

Compared with hypersonic dynamics and scramjet engines, which are new knowledge to everyone, rocket power is a part of the entire project that is not technically difficult and not too high.

If it weren't for Party A's eldest brother's urgent need to modify the project, there would not even be a need to hire foreign aid from MIT.

However, even if there are extraneous things, this part is still an inconspicuous content.

The atmosphere among the entire technical and testing teams is therefore relatively relaxed.

Even after the test results were determined to meet the design requirements, Dr. Mellie Hurst also proposed to line up the six completely blackened rocket booster sections and combine them with more than 30 core personnel. film.

Although not everyone is interested in this kind of publicity, it is an important stage victory after all. In addition, Hester is now the person in charge of the subsystem, so everyone also chooses to give her some face.

Coupled with the brief celebration ceremony, after a lot of trouble, it quickly entered the night without even realizing it.

Everyone who had finally finished their work began to leave one after another. The few who still needed to be on duty were all thinking about the Christmas holiday in the near future.

Only Hearst's deputy and junior, Daniel Jablonski, who has been directly responsible for interfacing with Boeing for a long time, remains in front of the computer, preparing to sort out the test procedures of the past few days for future filling. own doctoral thesis.

But this was just a quick act, but he quickly caught the abnormal situation——

Check out the 16-9 book bar and see the correct version!

Although the test results all fall within the numerical range allowed by the project, the working curves of the No. 1 and No. 2 machines outside their corresponding test ranges are not consistent.

However, he didn't take it too seriously at first.

After all, the stability of solid rocket motors is relatively poor, and it is normal for some performance fluctuations to occur. It is nothing more than choosing two products that are quite different.

Moreover, even this can pass the test, which shows that the new propellant design has high redundancy.

However, Jablonski soon discovered that things were not that simple.

Because the same situation also occurred in the subsequent No. 3-6 machines.

There was not much difference between each two curves in sequence, and it was easy to ignore them as individual differences. However, when he drew the six curves on the same table, he found that the differences were not random highs and lows like normal fluctuations, but rather It is an extremely regular and sequential increase.

This doesn't seem to be the result of random factors...

Due to the inflexible control characteristics of the solid rocket motor, its test conditions are not infinitely changed, but several representative scattered intervals are pre-selected to verify the adaptability of the engine under simulated actual working conditions.

The six working curves show regular differences, and the most likely explanation is that someone has made "test-oriented" transformations on them.

Just like the university computer programming exam, as long as you know in advance the verification method of the submitted program in the background, you can save the program writing process and directly output the result values ​​corresponding to several test inputs.

However, if this is the case, then the authenticity of the entire project...

Jablonski subconsciously wanted to stop Hester who was packing his things.

But his eyes caught a glimpse of his and his senior sister's signatures on the document next to him.

Suddenly, a cold sweat broke out from my back...

(End of chapter)