Influence of the design parameters of a fuel thermal management system on its thermal endurance

Abstract

The aerodynamic heating of a high-speed vehicle is destined to lead to a continuous fuselage temperature rise. However, its airborne thermal load rises exponentially. This will severely limit the thermal endurance of the high-speed vehicle and the working time of the electronic equipment. A jet-propelled high-speed vehicle usually uses fuel to generate thrust, so fuel thermal management technology has had much attention paid to it. During the vehicle design, its total amount of fuel should match its flight envelope. However, determining the amount of carried fuel is very difficult because it is affected by many factors. In order to analyze the relationship between the above influence factors and the flight envelope, a typical fuel thermal management system is set up for high-speed vehicles. Its dynamic characteristic equations are built correspondingly. A conception of thermal endurance is further presented to reveal the maximum flight time. Some flight conditions are used to analyze the influence of the main design parameters on the thermal endurance of high-speed vehicles. The results can help to design the parameters of fuel thermal management systems for high-speed vehicles.