“Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of the Infrared Emission from a Generic Hypersonic Glide Vehicle”—A Response

Abstract

A recent paper by Candler and Leyva in Science & Global Security comments on our 2020 paper “Modelling the Performance of Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles” analyzing the capabilities of hypersonic boost-glide weapons. They provide useful new data on several previously uncertain aspects of glide vehicle aerodynamics and report results from computational fluid dynamics calculations of heating and infrared light emission from hypersonic vehicles during the glide phase. They report infrared emissions lower than those we reported but still above the minimum detection threshold of modern U.S. space sensors. We discuss how Candler and Leyva’s new data can be incorporated into our analytical model and identify significant, unresolved discrepancies between their results and those of a previously published computational fluid dynamics analysis of the same glide vehicle. Finally, we comment on the role of social processes in the construction of knowledge about hypersonic weapon performance.

Notes

1 Cameron L. Tracy and David Wright, “Modeling the Performance of Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles,” Science & Global Security 28 (2020): 135–70.

2 John Law, “Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion,” in The Social Construction of Technological Systems, edited by Wiebe Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012), 105–27. On heterogeneous engineering and missile development see Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993); Graham Spinardi, From Polaris to Trident: The Development of US Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

3 Graham V. Candler and Ivett A. Leyva, “Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of the Infrared Emission from a Generic Hypersonic Glide Vehicle,” Science & Global Security 30 (2022): 117–30, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08929882.2022.2145777.

4 James M. Acton, “Hypersonic Boost-Glide Weapons,” Science & Global Security 23 (2015): 191–219, http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs23acton.pdf.

5 Candler and Leyva, “Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis.” Our original paper considered detection by both DSP and SBIRS satellites, but the focus on SBIRS is clearly more relevant, as it is significantly more sensitive and has satellites near the poles that are in better locations to observe many trajectories than are the DSP satellites in geosynchronous orbits.

6 Qinglin Niu, Zhichao Yuan, Biao Chen, and Shikui Dong, “Infrared Radiation Characteristics of a Hypersonic Vehicle Under Time-Varying Angles of Attack,” Chinese Journal of Aeronautics 32 (2019): 867, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2019.01.003.

7 Acton, “Hypersonic Boost-Glide Weapons.”

8 Tauber et al., “Aerothermodynamics;” Anderson, Hypersonic and High-Temperature Gas Dynamics.”

9 Niu et al. “Infrared Radiation.”

10 See John D. Anderson, Hypersonic and High-Temperature Gas Dynamics, 2nd ed. (Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2006), 13–23, 327–35. https://doi.org/10.2514/4.861956.

11 Michael E. Tauber, Gene P. Menees, and Henry G. Adelman “Aerothermodynamics of Transatmospheric Vehicles,” Journal of Aircraft 24 (1987), 594–602, https://doi.org/10.2514/3.45483; See also Anderson, Hypersonic and High-Temperature Gas Dynamics, 349–50.

12 Acton, “Hypersonic Boost-Glide Weapons.”

13 The value of β affects the glide altitude h, which enters the drag equation in the form R_e + h, where R_e is the radius of the Earth. A change in h by 10 km changes the drag force by less than a percent.

14 Acton, “Hypersonic Boost-Glide Weapons.”

15 Niu et al. “Infrared Radiation.”

16 Niu et al.’s results agree well with those reported in our 2020 article in the case of α = 0. Using Tauber’s equation for a turbulent boundary layer as in our 2020 paper, the value we calculate for the IR emission in the SWIR band agrees within about 5% with the results that Niu et al. calculated using CFD methods (205 vs. 195 kW/sr) and under the same conditions (altitude = 50 km, v = 5.4 km/s, α = 0).