China's hypersonic missiles have become as common as vegetables, why can't the United States replicate it? The answer has two points: one is that the material technology is not good enough, and the other is that the United States lacks a hypersonic wind tunnel.

Especially the hypersonic wind tunnel, which directly limits the upper bound of the United States in fields such as fighter jets, missiles, and rockets. Even if we give the United States the technical drawings of hypersonic missiles, they still cannot produce them.

Everyone should know that the core of a missile is aerodynamic design. At speeds exceeding five times the speed of sound, air exhibits completely different physical properties compared to low-speed conditions, such as generating strong shock waves.

These phenomena are extremely complex, and precise description by computer simulation is impossible. You need to go into a wind tunnel for testing. Without a hypersonic wind tunnel, you cannot know whether the fighter jet or hypersonic missile you designed will generate the expected lift and be stable and controllable during actual flight.

This is like an blind archer shooting arrows, relying entirely on luck. The United States cannot develop a hypersonic wind tunnel because China's wind tunnel theory is original.

This is Academician Yu Hongru, the father of Chinese wind tunnels. His mentor was Guo Yonghuai, the only person in China who made outstanding achievements in the three major fields of "two bombs and one satellite."

Academician Yu Hongru analyzed the limitations of mainstream high enthalpy shock wave wind tunnel technology internationally, and innovatively developed the detonation-driven high-enthalpy shock wave wind tunnel technology, established a systematic theory of detonation-driven hypersonic wind tunnels, and further proposed the shock wave reflection-type forward detonation drive method. By using the upward shock wave generated by the reflection of the detonation wave, the shape and reconstruction of the detonation wave were achieved, solving the academic problem of severe attenuation of incident shock waves caused by rarefaction waves. The driving capacity was five times higher than that of the reverse detonation drive mode.

Currently, there are three main types of strong drive methods for shock tubes worldwide: heavy piston drive, heated light gas drive, and Yu Hongru's detonation drive.

China's hypersonic wind tunnels are built based on this theory. In 2012, our JF12 hypersonic wind tunnel was put into use. The F12 hypersonic reproduction wind tunnel is nearly 300 meters long, making it the largest shock wave wind tunnel in the world. It is called "Super Dragon" (Hyper-Dragon) by international peers. It is the first super large hypersonic wind tunnel in the world that can reproduce the conditions of hypersonic flight. The reproduction wind tunnel theory and technology solved a six-decade global problem in ground testing for hypersonic speeds, achieving a breakthrough from "simulation" to "reproduction" in wind tunnel test conditions.

At that time, we said that we were more than ten years ahead of foreign countries. This is the core reason for the popularization of hypersonic missiles.

Now, our JF22 has already started operating, capable of reproducing 33 Mach. There is still no country in the world that has built a wind tunnel at the same level as JF12. Now we lead the world by at least 20 years. Moreover, building a wind tunnel really requires leading-edge power technology globally.

If JF uses a conventional power supply method, each start-up would require the power of the Three Gorges Dam. The power technology of Europe and the United States can't handle it. Have you noticed that China's current technological boom is interlinked? We have planned the ultra-high voltage grid in advance. Once energy is secured, developing wind tunnels, military ship power systems, and hybrid tanks all come naturally.

Many people think that building a wind tunnel is a simple task, just build a large tunnel and use a huge fan to blow air. In fact, the construction of a wind tunnel is a very complex issue. It involves over 20 professional fields, including aerodynamics, materials science, electromechanics, acoustics, etc.

Regarding the airflow inside the tunnel, the velocity must be uniform throughout the test section, the direction of the velocity must be parallel, and the turbulence must be controlled within certain limits. This is what is known as the requirement for flow field quality. For high-speed wind tunnels, in addition to the requirements for flow field quality, there are also requirements for humidity and temperature of the airflow. After the tunnel meets the requirements, many supporting testing equipment and instruments are also needed. There must be devices for measuring force, torque, and velocity and pressure at various points in the flow field.

Because of the large amount of data, there is also a need for automatic data acquisition and processing equipment. Therefore, even if the United States wants to tackle hypersonic wind tunnels, it still has a significant gap compared to our JF12 level.

It can be said that why we are far ahead of the United States in the next generation of engines, including detonation engines and scramjet engines, you see that we have already achieved a verification of 16 Mach speed. Why can we develop sixth-generation aircraft earlier? Why do we have so many hypersonic missiles of all types on land, sea, and air? It's all due to China's original detonation-driven hypersonic wind tunnel, which is alien technology for the United States.

Currently, China's wind tunnel technology has been listed in the "Chinese Prohibited Export Technology Catalogue." As a core technology of China, wind tunnel technology is strictly restricted from being obtained by Europe and the United States.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7556802046599414322/

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