Evolution of Scramjet & Its Future
Scramjet or supersonic combustion ramjet is an ramjet airbreathing jet engine variant where combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. As in ramjets, a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully before combustion (hence ram jet), but whereas a ramjet decelerates the air to subsonic velocities before combustion using shock cones, a scramjet has no shock cone and slows the airflow using shockwaves produced by its ignition source in place of a shock cone. This allows the scramjet to operate efficiently at extremely high speeds. Although scramjet engines have been used in a handful of operational military vehicles, scramjets have so far mostly been demonstrated in research test articles and experimental vehicles. History Before 2000 The Bell X-1 attained supersonic flight in 1947 and, by the early 1960s, rap...