Handbook

ZEIT4013 is a 6 Unit of Credit elective course that introduces students to the fundamental physical problems of hypersonic flight and hypersonic testing, as well as touching on the scientific, tactical, strategic, political, and societal aspects of hypersonic technologies.  The course is entirely project-based and will see students investigate a chosen hypersonic system and carry that system through a variety of projects, culminating in the design of a ground test facility suitable for that system.  

The projects include two presentations, one on the background on the system and one on a hypersonic ground testing facility. Presentation skills make up a significant portion of the marks for those assessments.  Another project is designed for students to learn and apply the fundamental physical principles of hypersonic flight, including but not limited to, analysis of shocks and expansions, boundary layers, high-temperature effects and heating, and rarefied gas effects.  The final project will be a group project to design a hypersonic ground test facility for the chosen system.  

The course follows on from the third-year aerodynamics course ZEIT3503 with some knowledge of compressible flow assumed.  The course also assumes that the students have a preliminary knowledge of fluid mechanical principles, acquired in the two second-year core fluids courses for aeronautical and mechanical engineers, ZEIT2500 and ZEIT2503.  It is important for students to remember the Navier-Stokes equations from second- and third-year fluids courses, as these are fundamental to explaining the behaviour of hypersonic flows.