The flight performance of hypersonic cruise vehicles (HCVs), a competitive focus of international aerospace technologies in the 21st century, can be measured by a ratio of the initial boost mass to the generalized payload. A coupling frame to analyze the performance was established in Ref.[1]. Under the frame, two important effects, namely the centrifugal force and glide distance, have been further taken into account in this article. It was shown quantitatively that for a given distance, the first important factor to affect the flight performance of HCVs is the cruise speed, the second is the lift-to-drag ratio, and the third is the specific impulse of the cruise engine. As a flight distance increases, the performance of a rocket-based HCV, greatly improved due to the centrifugal force and glide distance taken into account, is significantly superior to the classical minimum-energy trajectory from short-middle to long range. A hypersonic air-breathing ramjet, though its specific impulse much higher than that of a rocket engine, is not so good as the latter in terms of the cruise speed range and lift-to-drag ratio. It is concluded that rocket-based HCVs flying at the optimal speed are a very competitive choice at the current stage.%高超声速巡航飞行器(HCV)是21世纪国际空天技术竞争的焦点,它的飞行性能可以用初始发射质量与广义有效载荷之比衡量.文献[1]建立了该性能的耦合分析框架.在这个框架下进一步考虑了离心力和滑翔距离两个重要因素的影响.定量分析表明:给定飞行距离,对HCV飞行性能影响最大的是巡航速度,其次是升阻比,再次是巡航发动机比冲.随着飞行距离的增加,由于离心力和滑翔距离的计入,火箭动力HCV的飞行性能大幅提高,从近中程到远程均显著优于经典的最小能量弹道.吸气式冲压发动机尽管比冲大幅优于火箭发动机,但在巡航速度适用范围和飞行器升阻比方面,均不及后者.综合而言,火箭动力HCV是现阶段非常有竞争力的选择.
展开▼
