05-06-2013, 02:04 PM
space-time wrote:
[quote=Will Collier]
Nice accomplishment. The hypersonic regime is very tricky, particularly for controlled flight with an air-breathing engine. The gas constant becomes variable, O^2 breaks up into single-atom atomic oxygen... lots of weird stuff.
you mean this gas constant?
Nope, the adiabatic gas constant (gamma). For up to about Mach 4, it's a constant at 1.4. Get towards Mach 5 and above and it becomes variable.
And then there are the entropy changes across the shock wave and nasty viscous flow effects, and...