Skylon...Pre-cooler HTX test programme.

The HTX test programme is a manufacturing and performance ground level demonstration of a pre-cooler type heat exchanger in a high enthalpy (temperature) environment, similar to that expected to be seen by the SABRE engine during its air-breathing flight regime – up to ~1000°C air inlet temperature.

The pre-cooler is designed to absorb over 5 megawatts of heat energy from the incoming hot air passing through it so that the outlet air temperature is just above ambient. Proving the capability and performance of this type of heat exchanger in these extreme environmental conditions opens up the capability of operating at the high supersonic cruise speeds envisaged for the SABRE engine in its air-breathing mode.

The complete test assembly and equipment required to undertake this demonstration is being designed, built and assembled by Reaction Engines and its partners at its headquarters in Oxfordshire, UK. Generating the environmental conditions relevant to high speed operation in a ground test facility is possible through the controlled thermal conditions delivered by the TF2 facility in Colorado, managed by Reaction Engines Inc.

One of the great advantages of the SABRE propulsion concept is that it is totally modular from both design and operational perspectives. This means in practice that all of the key parts in the engine can be developed and tested individually before being integrated into the rest of the machine. Applying this principle to the whole propulsion system itself, it becomes apparent that the complete engine ‘core’ can be tested at ground-level static conditions, right up to its operational design condition of Mach 5, and 25 km altitude. This is only possible because of the unique operational characteristics of the Pre-Cooler, which sits in front of the main engine core. The Pre-Cooler ensures the core sees cool ambient air conditions, right up to that high speed operating point. There is thus no need to test the SABRE core at actual Mach 5 conditions.

A major programme was launched in October 2016 to design, build and demonstrate a complete SABRE engine core, which is the whole engine minus the Pre-cooler and rocket nozzle (these systems are being developed separately). This Core design and development activity is a major undertaking, and will start delivering results in 2019, culminating in full system testing in 2020, at which point the world’s first air-breathing engine capable of accelerating from zero to Mach 5 will have been demonstrated.

Naturally this demonstrator engine has been designed at a scale that is totally representative of a SABRE flight engine and is completely consistent with the design of the new test facility, TF1 at Westcott.

https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre/htx

https://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre/core-engine-demonstrator

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