A research team at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is teaming up with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory to test thin yet durable materials for hypersonic flight using an upgraded source of ultrabright x-rays.
The Embry-Riddle team is designing a device that will reproduce the extreme heat fluctuations and stresses of hypersonic flight. The device will work in tandem with the ultrabright x-rays of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne, to track the changes that occur in these materials as they happen.
The research team’s goal is an alternative that replicates hypersonic flight conditions using fewer energy resources and uses APS x-rays to capture detailed data. The APS is in the final stages of an upgrade that increased the brightness of its x-ray beams by up to 500 times. It is now the brightest synchrotron x-ray facility in the world, and according to Seetha Raghavan, Embry-Riddle professor, the enhanced capabilities of the upgraded APS are crucial to this project.
Victoria Cooley, an APS beamline scientist who worked with the Embry-Riddle team at beamline 1-ID, touted both the upgraded x-ray beam and the improved experiment station.
“It’s an exciting time for our beamline,” she said. “Brighter x-rays allow us to probe deep into materials with a higher-resolution beam and map very thin samples like these. At the same time, we have installed faster, more sensitive detectors to capture chemical or crystallographic changes occurring incredibly quickly. These two pieces come together to make world-changing projects such as this one possible.”
Uncovering materials that can withstand the conditions of hypersonic flight and are not prohibitively expensive to produce is key to unlocking their many applications. Durable hypersonic materials could be used for military and civilian aircraft, as well as cargo delivery vehicles.
Image – The Embry-Riddle research team at Beamline 1-ID, with Argonne scientist Victoria Cooley (back row, right). Courtesy of Mark Lopez/Argonne National Laboratory.
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