Posted 6/24/2004 09:29:00 PM by Douglas

$5 Million of our money awarded to UT aerospace engineering professors to. . . uh, I can't figure out what, exactly. But something to do with engines.

Four University of Texas at Austin aerospace engineering professors have received a $5 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research to develop more efficient engine concepts for space vehicles.

“If we don’t improve the cost-efficiency of launching vehicles into space, we will never be able to take advantage of the potential that space offers for scientific, commercial and military applications,” said Dr. David Dolling, professor of aerospace engineering and the project’s principal investigator.

The engineers will seek to combine propulsion methods used in commercial airliners and advanced research-grade engines to create an engine that is the most efficient for each point in the flight through the earth’s atmosphere, until rocket engines take over to boost the vehicle into orbit. Such an engine would save fuel and reduce structural weight, Dolling said.

Ok, better propulsion, lighter weight. So far we've caught up with the Wright brothers. What now? How 'bout some fancy thermodynamic name dropping?

Engines use only one kind of “propulsion cycle”—a way of mixing fuel and oxidizer, combusting it and producing hot, high energy gas to propel the vehicle. Commercial aircraft, for example, use gas turbine cycles and a few supersonic systems use ramjet propulsion cycles, in which the speed of the vehicle is so high that the air is compressed in the intake without a mechanical compressor. In the future, aircraft may be propelled by “scramjet” cycles in which combustion of the fuel and oxidizer will occur at supersonic speeds. The scramjet cycle is most efficient at very high speeds. Each of these cycles provides optimal efficiency over a different range of speeds. By combining cycles, the engine maximizes its efficiency at all points in the flight.

Gas turbines, ramjets, scramjets. Flim-flam Bo-Bam Jets. I don't have a clue as to what these guys are up to, but if there's one thing UT knows how to do, it's write up a grant proposal.

I wish them the best. Nothing would be better than for a bunch of UT guys to come up with the next generation of air/space craft propulsion. Hell, I might even put another "UT College of Engineering" sticker on my car.