Chinese scientists plan boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly and swim

[beijingwalker]

Chinese scientists plan boron-powered supersonic missile that can fly and swim​

• Anti-ship device will be able to cruise at commercial airliner altitudes and reach 200 knots underwater, project team says
• Volatile element that reacts in both air and water will power the ‘cross-media’ weapon

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Published: 12:30pm, 13 Sep, 2022

A file photo of a Chinese frigate launching an anti-ship missile during a military exercise near south China’s Hainan Island and Paracel Islands. Photo: Xinhua

China is developing a supersonic anti-ship missile that will be able to travel further and faster than any traditional torpedo, according to researchers involved in the project.
The 5 metre (16.4 feet) missile will be able to cruise at 2.5 times the speed of sound at about 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) – the same altitude as a commercial airliner – for 200km (124 miles) before diving and skimming across the waves for up to 20km.

Once it is within about 10km of its target, the missile will go into torpedo mode, travelling underwater at up to 100 metres per second (200 knots) using supercavitation – the formation of a giant air bubble around it which significantly reduces drag, according to the researchers.

It will also be able to change course at will or crash-dive to a depth of up to 100 metres to evade underwater defence systems without losing momentum.

Lead scientist Li Pengfei and his team said no existing ship defence system was designed to handle such a fast “cross-media” attack. “This can greatly improve the missile’s penetration capability,” they said.
One of the biggest challenges for the developers is the power system, because of the need to produce considerable thrust while breathing in either air or water. But Li’s team said the problem could be solved by using boron – a light element that reacts violently when exposed to both, releasing a huge amount of heat.

The team, from the college of aerospace science and engineering in the National University of Defence Technology in Changsha, Hunan province, unveiled a blueprint for the missile’s power system in the September 8 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Solid Rocket Technology, published by the Chinese Society of Astronautics.

Boron was briefly added to jet fuel by the US Air Force in the 1950s to increase the power of supersonic bombers. But the project was abandoned because the ignited boron particles were hard to control and formed a layer of debris that gradually reduced engine performance.

The hypersonic race has rekindled interest in boron in recent years. China, for instance, has built air-breathing scramjet engines using solid fuel containing boron nanoparticles to accelerate missiles to five times the speed of sound or faster, according to openly available information.

The US military has similar programmes. A Nasa study funded by the US Navy last year found that nanotubes made using boron nitride, a combination of boron and nitrogen, could potentially be used to power hypersonic weapons travelling at speeds above 6,400km/h (4,000 miles per hour).

But most boron-powered engines are designed to work only in the air. Researchers usually choose aluminium or magnesium as fuel to drive supercavitating torpedoes as they react more easily with water.
Li’s team said they had designed a boron-powered ramjet engine that could work both in the air and underwater.

There are some unique components, such as adjustable inlets and exhaust nozzles to maintain the boron’s burn efficiency in different environments, but the biggest change is in the fuel rods, according to their paper.

Boron usually accounts for about 30 per cent of the total fuel weight in an air-breathing missile because of the many other chemicals required to control and prolong the strong combustion.
Li’s team has doubled the share of boron in the fuel and estimates the result could produce a thrust greater than that of aluminium in water.

“The cross-media ramjet uses a fuel-rich solid propellant, which burns with the external air or seawater entering into the ram to generate high-temperature gas and generates thrust through the nozzle,” the paper said.

“It has the high specific impulse and simple structure as an ideal power source for a cross-media anti-ship missile.”

The team said the increased boron content could cause some problems in mass production, ignition and combustion control, but these “can be solved by the modification of boron particles, improvement of manufacturing process, and the study of grain mass properties”.

Adjusting the thrust of a solid fuel engine is difficult. The boron powder, for instance, behaves as both solid and fluid when injected into the combustion chamber, making physical modelling or regulation of the burning process challenging.

And once started, the process cannot be stopped.

China has made some significant progress on solid propellent technology in recent years, including the application of multiple layers of coating on nanofuel particles to rein in their explosive behaviours.

Last year, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation built and tested a 3.5 metre wide motor that generates 500 tonnes of thrust, the most powerful rocket engine ever built using a single segment of solid propellant.

And the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ new civilian solid-fuelled rocket Lijian One, with advanced combustion control technology, is twice as big as the DF-41, China’s largest road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.

But there are risks for China in relying on borofuels for mass-produced weapons, according to a materials scientist in Beijing who is studying the volatile element.

China imports about half of its boron ores from overseas – mainly from the US – and it is about 100 times more expensive than aluminium.

“There is a growing concern that boron will become a target in the trade war,” said the researcher, who asked not to be named because of the issue’s sensitivity.

Chinese scientists plan supersonic missile that can fly and swim

Anti-ship device will be able to cruise at commercial airliner altitudes and reach 200 knots underwater, project team says.

www.scmp.com

 

[Zarvan]

If they manage to achieve it. It would create shockwaves in the world.

 

[beijingwalker]

China unveils supersonic missile-torpedo anti-ship weapon​

New anti-ship missile may fly and swim blind into its targets without an advanced guidance system
By GABRIEL HONRADA
SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

Chinese Type 055 cruiser firing YJ-18 supersonic anti-ship missile. Photo: Sina News

China is developing an anti-ship missile that turns into a torpedo during its terminal phase, combining flight and underwater capabilities in one weapon to increase the probability of a successful strike.

This week, the South China Morning Post reported that China’s new 5.4-meter hybrid weapon could cruise up to Mach 2.5 at 10,000 meters for 200 kilometers before transitioning to a supersonic sea-skimming mode for 20 kilometers. Upon reaching the final 10 kilometers to the target, it shifts into supercavitating torpedo mode traveling at 100 meters per second.

Lead scientist Li Pengfei and his team from the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha claimed that no existing shipboard defense system can protect against this “cross-medium” attack, with the missile capable of changing course at will or crash-diving up to 100 meters to evade shipboard defenses.

The article mentions that traditional boron-powered engines are designed only to work in the air, while supercavitating torpedoes use aluminum or magnesium fuels that react with water.

To overcome this challenge, Li and his team proposed a design for a boron-powered solid-fuel ramjet (SFRJ) engine that can function both in air and underwater in the September 8 issue of the Chinese domestic peer-reviewed Journal of Solid Rocket Technology.

An SFRJ consists of three main components, namely an air intake system, a combustion chamber and a nozzle, and is the simplest method of achieving supersonic flight. As it relies only on its forward motion to compress intake air, it has no moving parts. And although the design is simple, the combustion process is very complex.

The South China Morning Post notes that boron is a critical element for hypersonic weapon fuels. The highly-reactive element could quickly become a hotly contested resource as China, Russia and the US race for hypersonic weapon dominance.

The Chinese researchers noted that controlling the burn rate of the fuel rods is the biggest challenge to their design. Although their design features adjustable inlets and exhaust nozzles to maintain burn efficiency in different environments, the fuel rods are an issue.

They note that boron takes 30% of the total fuel weight in an air-breathing missile due to the other chemicals needed to control and extend the intense combustion. Their proposed design has double the boron content, which produces greater thrust than aluminum in water.

However, the researchers noted that the increased boron content could cause problems in mass production, ignition and combustion control. Also, thrust control is an inherent challenge in solid fuel engines.

China is upgrading its torpedo technology. Image of a Yu-6 torpedo first domestic Chinese torpedo designed to counter both surface ships and submarines. Photo: Facebook

In their design, the boron powder behaves as both solid and liquid when injected into the combustion chamber, making physical modeling or combustion control challenging. Additionally, since their design is solid-fueled, the combustion process cannot be stopped once ignited.

Still, the research team emphasized modifying the boron particles, improving the manufacturing process and further study of grain mass properties can solve the challenges. They also noted that China has made several advances in solid rocket fuels, including by applying multiple coatings on nanofuel particles to control their explosive properties.

While in theory this new anti-ship missile may be a formidable weapon, its unique flight characteristics and capabilities present technical challenges. Specifically, China’s new anti-ship missile may encounter problems in its guidance systems.

Sea skimming is a flight profile used by combat aircraft and many other anti-ship missiles to minimize the chance of detection. It involves flying as close as possible to the water surface, utilizing a combination of very low altitude and sea state to fly below radars and substantially increase the difficulty of being shot down.

As the South China Morning Post noted, the new anti-ship missile enters a supersonic sea-skimming mode before entering supercavitating torpedo mode.

However, in an article for Naval Post, Ryan White mentions that supersonic sea-skimming missiles get extremely hot in flight, which prevents the use of infrared seeker heads. He also notes that during supersonic flight, a hot layer of ionized gas forms around the missile which blocks out radar waves and datalink communications.

These limitations make it necessary to use active radar seekers, which presents challenges.

Active radar seekers are more expensive than semi-active radar seekers, as they have both radar transceivers and receivers in one unit. Moreover, due to their use of batteries and small size, they have limited range and power compared to larger designs. They also are not sufficient to hit long-range targets without the help of more powerful ground, naval or air-based radar systems.

China’s new anti-ship missile may encounter similar problems in supercavitating torpedo mode. Supercavitation uses cavitation effects to create a pocket of air or vapor surrounding an object traveling through water, reducing drag and enabling it to travel at very high speeds.

In a separate article for Naval Post, Dorian White notes several limitations of supercavitating torpedoes. First, supercavitating torpedoes have limited maneuverability, as sharp turns risk the torpedo’s control surfaces touching the water, which could rip parts off.

Further, supercavitation is very energy inefficient, which may explain the short range of China’s new anti-ship missile in supercavitating mode. Moreover, supercavitating torpedoes have a much smaller warhead than conventional torpedoes, as much of their energy is devoted to maintaining supercavitation in water.

As a supercavitating torpedo is essentially an underwater rocket, firing the weapon is extremely loud, which could easily be detected by sonar, enabling the target to take evasive maneuvers or locate the launching ship or submarine for counterattack.

Supercavitating torpedoes are also blind, as their high speed prevents wire guidance used by conventional torpedoes and thus, rely on their target not moving. However, their loud firing signature may negate their advantage of high-speed surprise.

As supersonic anti-ship missiles and supercavitating torpedoes remain untested in combat, it is unknown how China’s new weapon combining features of both would fare in actual use.

China unveils supersonic missile-torpedo anti-ship weapon

China is developing an anti-ship missile that turns into a torpedo during its terminal phase, combining flight and underwater capabilities in one weapon to increase the probability of a successful …

asiatimes.com

 

[MajesticPug]

National University of Defence Technology in Changsha, Hunan, just alerted the Beijing authorities NSA has hacked into its R/D labs and stole 240GB of data.

 

[nahtanbob]

there were always rumors of Russia developing super-cavitating weapons. It never materialized.

 

[qwerrty]

the US thief will hack that university like they did with the uni that doing hypersonic missile.

 

[Ahmadbhutta01]

Hands down, china is already a next super power, may god protect it from evil west. They must already be planning to engage china into a conflict (Taiwan) to weaken it just like they did with Russia

 

[White and Green with M/S]

there were always rumors of Russia developing super-cavitating weapons. It never materialized.

Ever heard shkval torpedo you fake Indian