China Academy of Engineering Physics has Made Breakthrough in Modeling Hypervelocity Gas Guns

In the past 20 years, the Laboratory for Shock Wave and Detonation Physics Research in Institute of Fluid Physics (IFP), China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) has conducted the research in hypervelocity launch technology. The State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing of Wuhan University of Technology participated in the research as a cooperator, and took charge of the flier processing. In this project, significant progresses have been made in optimization of the physical design, material processing and experimental measurement technology. Their work, entitled "The gas gun launch advances in numerical simulation of hypervelocity impact", was published in SCIENTIA SINICA Physica, Mechanica & Astronomica, 2014, Vol 44(5).

Numerous space debris in the orbit of the earth, especially the small ones that are untraceable and unevadable, have seriously threatened the safety of the spacecraft. It is of great importance to carry out the numerical simulation and experiment of the impact between the debris and spacecraft, and to investigate the physical process and characteristics, which can be used to enhance or improve the protection structure of the spacecraft, and reduce the harm of the space debris.

In their project, not only significant progresses have been made in optimization of the launcher's configuration, physical design of the flier plate, material processing and experimental measurement technology, but also the experimental data of equation of state (EOS) for the material under ultra-high pressure was also obtained.

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Those mysterious big tubes in the Chinese desert may just be gas guns they have been experimenting with.