Aerospace applications propulsion systems

Potential applications exist for metallic (MMCs) and intermetallic matrix composites (IMCs) in next generation aerospace propulsion systems for advanced commercial subsonic airaaft and high speed civil transport. These applications require stiff, strong and light materials that operate at higher temperatures with long lifetimes [48]. 

Since the oxidation resistance of SiC is much better than that of carbon, SiC/SiC composites have been developed for aerospace application such as propulsion and high velocity systems. Similar to carbon/carbon composites, the SiC/SiC continuous fiber composites consist of a fiber architecture made of silicon car-hide fibers in a matrix of silicon carbide. The matrix is usually produced by CVl or preceramic polymer impregnation and pyrolysis. 

Material systems based on carbon nanotubes are a particularly attractive new class of materials. On the basis of computer simulations and limited experimental data, some specific forms of carbon nanotubes appear to possess extraordinary mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. If the properties of carbon nanotubes observed at the molecular level can be translated into useful macro-scale materials, the potential benefits to the aerospace industry include applications to vehicle structures, propulsion systems, thermal management, energy storage, electronic and computing, sensors and devices, and biological and medical applications. 

During the past decades, progress in aeronautics and astronautics has been remarkable because people have learned to master the difficult feat of hypervelocity flight. A variety of manned and unmanned aircraft have been developed for faster transportation from one point on earth to another. Similarly, aerospace vehicles have been constructed for further exploration of the vast depths of space and the neighboring planets in the solar system. RPs has found numerous uses in specialty areas (ablation, insulation, etc.) such as hypersonic atmospheric flight and chemical propulsion exhaust systems. The particular RP employed in these applications is based on the inherent properties of the material or the ability to combine it with another component material to obtain a balance of properties uncommon to either component. 

Propulsion by means of solid propellant is one of the advanced aerospace and missile fields of research. The remarkable performance, with a technologically more simple system than the liquid propellant jet, put this type of propellant at the heart of many advanced applications. Solid propellant engines find their application in all the propelled mission phases where the reference parameters (Trust Vectoring Control (TVC), time of ignition. 

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