Optimal design for active cooling system of hypersonic vehicle

Active cooling with hydrocarbon-fuel is one of the most effective ways for hypersonic vehicle thermal protection. In order to enture the lightweight of a flight vehicle it is very necessary to minimize the weight of the active cooling system under working conditions. This paper provides an optimization method for the purpose by developing a code based on MATLAB@2007. The code is applied to calculate the minimum weight and the structure dimensions of the active cooling system under various loading conditions. Three Ni-based alloys including Inconel X-750, Inconel 625 and Hastelloy X are selected as the solid materials of the active cooling system, respectively. A thermal barrier coating is applied on the actively cooled panel side near the combustion chamber to discuss the thermal barrier coating's effect on minimizing the weight. This work is helpful in testing the optimal result of different materials and provides a good theoretical foundation for the material selection and optimal design of the active cooling system.