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Stephen Chen

A team of Chinese scientists say they have found a way to make a hypersonic missile with a steel nose cone – something once seen as a pipe dream.
The researchers, led by Huang Fenglei, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, unveiled a design for a hypersonic glide anti-ship missile in the peer-reviewed Chinese journal Acta Armamentarii last month.
The partial blueprint shows the shell of the warhead – located at the very front of the missile – made from a widely available, high-strength stainless steel.
Steel begins to melt at around 1,200 degrees Celsius (2,190 Fahrenheit), but the nose of a hypersonic weapon can hit temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees in flight due to heating by the atmosphere.
The team says their missile is designed to reach Mach 8 – or eight times the speed of sound – and that it marks a key step forward in thermal protection technology.
Its use of an inexpensive material is also in line with the Chinese military’s strategy to keep costs down in the hypersonic arms race with the United States and Russia.
The paper does not say what stage the missile is at, or if it has undergone testing.


In the US, tungsten alloys are typically used for the parts of a hypersonic vehicle that heat up the most since tungsten has a melting point above 3,400 degrees.
Boeing’s abandoned X-51 Waverider, for instance, had a tungsten nose tip to withstand high temperatures at Mach 5.
But tungsten – a rare metal – is expensive and heavy, and 85 per cent of its global production is controlled by Chinese companies.
Tungsten alloys also accumulate a lot of thermal energy, and a US Congress investigation last year identified inadequate thermal protection as the main reason American hypersonic weapons tests have been failing.
A steel hypersonic missile would not survive for more than 20 seconds at its top speed without advanced thermal protection technology, the Beijing team wrote in the journal article last month.
Their missile is designed to shoot above the atmosphere after launch, then drop to an altitude of 30km to 20km (18 to 12 miles) as it glides towards a target ship.
After 18 seconds of travelling at Mach 8, the temperature inside the warhead could reach 300 degrees – not enough to melt steel but enough to ignite the explosive agent.
Adding a layer of thermal protection on the steel shell could solve the problem, according to the team.
They propose using an ultra-high-temperature ceramic that can withstand temperatures of 3,000 degrees-plus. That would make up a 4mm top layer of the protective barrier.
Underneath it and tightly adhered to the steel shell would be a 5mm layer of aerogel – a heat insulator to keep the temperature of the explosive agent at around 40 degrees during high-speed flight.
“This structure can address the aerodynamic heating issues faced by hypersonic warheads and ensure the thermal safety of the internal explosives during flight,” Huang and his colleagues wrote in the paper.
Project leader Huang is one of the most influential scientists working in China’s defence industry. Among his many roles, he is deputy research director of a classified military programme, a technical adviser to the powerful Central Military Commission, and deputy head of a technical unit in the PLA Equipment Development Department.




According to public information, the People’s Liberation Army has proposed using hypersonic weapons to attack US aircraft carrier strike groups, overseas military bases, and facilities in the United States such as radar stations in response to any American military intervention in the South China Sea or Taiwan.
Some studies have suggested that a small number of hypersonic missiles would be enough to neutralise a carrier strike group. But China’s military has been more conservative, estimating that in actual combat significantly more of the new missiles would be needed to destroy a target.
That would make cost an even bigger factor in the race to develop hypersonic weapons.
The US Army last year put the price tag of one of its experimental glide missiles at up to US$41 million – one-third more expensive than a ballistic missile with the same range.
China has not disclosed the cost of its hypersonic weapons, but according to publicly available reports some are being mass-produced and deployed for use on mobile missile launchers, warships and bombers.
As part of its ongoing reform and modernisation programme, China’s military has recently sought to reduce the cost of military products by requiring suppliers to make use of the country’s manufacturing technologies and economies of scale.
One example is a new way of making silicon carbide aerogel developed by Chinese scientists that means it could be produced for about one-hundredth of the cost and at ten times the speed.


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Science

China’s hypersonic missiles can be made from steel, scientists say

China is in a hypersonic arms race with the United States and Russia. Photo: Weibo

Chinese team thinks ‘outside the box’ to find a cool solution to hypersonic heat

The launch of a DF-17 hypersonic glide missile. China is in a race with the US and Russia to develop hypersonic capabilities. Photo: CCTV

The DF-17 hypersonic missile was unveiled in 2019. Photo: Weibo

China’s new hypersonic glider can power-jump to the other side of the Earth: scientists

Chin DF-17 uses the Qian Xuesen trajectory but scientists are now working on hypersonic gliders that would use a trajectory that acts more like a skipping stone to increase range. Photo: AP

The skipping stone trajectory sees the hypersonic glider go in and out of the atmosphere, which increases its range. Image: China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre

The design the team is looking at reached a top speed approaching Mach 20 in computer simulations. Image: China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre

Cheaper, quicker, stronger: Chinese scientists reinvent space heat shield gel output

A breakthrough by Chinese scientists in a method of making SiC aerogel could help reduce costs for space missions. Photo: CNSA

The new method of making bulk SiC aerogel will reduce cost and time for aerogel manufacture. Photo: Nature Communications

News

China

Beijing team says their design marks a key step forward in thermal protection technology


Beijing team says their design marks a key step forward in thermal protection technology.
