The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master.

Chapter 1312 Risk Control
As an old friend, Diamond saw through Collinger's concerns at a glance:
“In fact, in addition to LENS-X, which is being upgraded from LENS-2, we are also planning to start from scratch and develop a new generation of LENS-XX wind tunnel with a new gas drive and expansion system. It will use electrically heated hydrogen instead of helium as the drive gas. With the dual-stage drive technology, it can achieve an experimental airflow speed of Mach 25 and a total airflow temperature of 7500K, with an effective test time of no less than 10ms…”

It sounded very attractive at first, but the former was not at all confused by this rhetoric, and simply rolled his eyes:
"You will need to wait until the middle of next year to complete the modification of LENS-X. If you build a new one..."

He glanced at the two giant wind tunnels lying flat downstairs through the French window at one end of the control room, leaned close to Diamond's ear and whispered:

“Even if we don’t talk about technology, I’m afraid even the site selection problem is difficult to solve, right?”

Buffalo has a population of less than 40, which is not considered a big city. However, the research center was originally located on the shore of Lake Erie to solve the water problem, but the subsequent expansion project faced many obstacles from environmental organizations, fishing companies and waterway unions.

Although the water quality of the Great Lakes has long since deteriorated catastrophically and the fisheries along the lakes have been severely hit, this has not stopped relevant practitioners from asking research centers for "pollution control funds" that easily amount to billions of dollars.

As a non-profit academic institution, it is obviously difficult for Carlsbad University to raise such a huge amount of funds in a short period of time.

Besides, everyone knows that no matter what the name of these fees is, they are essentially protection fees.

Even if you raise funds from multiple sources the first time, there will inevitably be a second and third time in the future, which will not solve the problem at all.

Diamond shook his head.
“It’s really not possible here… But we have cooperated with MIT to obtain the right to use a new piece of land in Boston, and plan to build the LENS-XX wind tunnel in the future Boston Research Center…”

Ke Lingjie seemed a little surprised by this news, but it was only fleeting:
"Forget it... there's no point in saying this."

He sighed, and for the first time ever, he looked a little tired.

"As the name suggests, your new wind tunnel is most likely powered by heating light gas... Even if you can reproduce a very high flight Mach number, you can only take into account one of the two, high total airflow temperature and long test time, due to the inherent limitation of mechanical energy doing work..."

At this point, he suddenly paused:
"Speaking of which, I read the monthly technical intelligence summary issued by the company a few days ago. It said that based on the electricity consumption and the amount of chemical reagents purchased, it seems that China has increased the frequency of use of their wind tunnel group in the suburbs of Beijing?"

In fact, most of the useful intelligence is not obtained through the exciting Infernal Affairs plot, but is obtained by speculating with the help of various low-sensitivity or even public surrounding information.

Especially after entering the information age, it is even more difficult to keep general information completely confidential.

Diamond looked at Kellinger with a slightly strange look, but still replied:

"Since the beginning of this year, the Chinese have started to be active... However, they have stopped cooperating with Asia-Shenzhen University of Technology and have even stopped participating in the AIAA evaluation system, so for now we can only assume that they are pushing forward the new wind tunnel project."

"According to the most recent information update obtained by AIAA two years ago, the other party was developing a long-duration shock wave wind tunnel and a high-precision reproduction wind tunnel. It should be time to start construction..."

"What about performance? How is the performance?"

Collinger is clearly more concerned with practicality.

Diamond was very frank:

"Technically speaking, it is more advanced than LENS-2 or even LENS-X... To some extent, the reason why we are in a hurry to advance the LENS-XX project is to catch up with the progress of these Chinese counterparts."

As an expert in high-temperature gas dynamics, he does not shy away from the reality that the United States has fallen behind in the field of ultra-high-speed wind tunnels.

However, there is still a lack of correct understanding of the severity of this reality...

Therefore, seeing the horror on Ke Lingjie's face, Diamond quickly added:
"But you don't have to worry too much... Since they have decided to use long test time and high reproduction accuracy in two wind tunnels respectively, they should still focus on technical verification. In the future, they will need to combine these two technologies to come up with truly next-generation application products. So at least in the next few years, the data we accumulate through equivalent simulation combined with test flights will still be unique..."

"..."

……

Under the dual urging of a large amount of funds and DDL, the X51A project is moving forward with unprecedented efficiency, even giving the older generation like Collinger the illusion of returning to the peak of the Cold War. While the Buffalo Research Center's hypersonic wind tunnel is finalizing the two-stage tangential cone waverider scheme, the test of the rocket-powered booster stage is also being carried out simultaneously at Boeing's Wilmington Test Center.

Compared to hypersonic dynamics and scramjet engines, which are new knowledge to everyone, rocket propulsion is a part of the entire project that is not technically difficult and not very high.

If the client had not made a critical last-minute change to the project requirements, there would not even be a need to hire external help from MIT.

However, even if there are unexpected developments, this part is still not very noticeable.

The atmosphere of the entire technical and testing team also seems relatively relaxed.

Even after the test results confirmed that they met the design requirements, Dr. Mellie Hurst suggested lining up the six completely burnt rocket booster stages and taking a photo with more than 30 core personnel.

Although not everyone is interested in this kind of exposure, it is an important milestone after all. In addition, Hurst is now the head of the subsystem, so everyone chooses to give her some face.

Coupled with the brief celebration ceremony, after all the hustle and bustle, it was already late at night before we knew it.

Finally, everyone who finished their work left one after another. The few who still needed to be on duty all thought about the Christmas holiday that would come soon.

Only Daniel Jabolenski, Hurst's deputy and junior, who was also directly responsible for the connection with Boeing for a long time, remained in front of the computer, preparing to sort out the test process of the past few days in order to fill in his doctoral thesis in the future.

But this was just an act of diligence, but he quickly caught the abnormal situation -

Although the test results are within the numerical range allowed by the project, the working curves of Unit 1 and Unit 2 outside their respective test ranges do not match.

However, he didn't take it too seriously at first.

After all, solid rocket engines have relatively poor stability, so some fluctuations in performance are normal. It is nothing more than choosing two products with large differences.

Moreover, the fact that it could pass the test even in this situation actually shows that the new propellant design has a high degree of redundancy.

However, Jabolenski soon discovered that things were not that simple.

Because the same situation occurred with the following machines 3-6.

The difference between each two units in sequence is not big, and it is easy to ignore it as individual difference. However, when he plotted the six curves on the same table, he found that the differences among them were not random highs and lows like normal fluctuations, but rose in a very regular sequence.

This doesn't seem like a random result...

Due to the fact that solid rocket engines cannot be flexibly controlled, their test conditions are not changed continuously. Instead, several representative dispersed intervals are selected in advance to verify the adaptability of the engine under simulated actual working conditions.

The six working curves show regular differences, and the most likely explanation is that someone has transformed them to be "examination-oriented".

Just like the computer programming exam in college, as long as you know in advance how the background verifies the submitted program, you can skip the program writing process and directly output the result values ​​corresponding to several test inputs.

However, if this is the case, then the authenticity of the entire project...

Jabolenski subconsciously wanted to call out to Hearst who was packing his things.

But his eyes caught sight of his and his senior sister's signatures on the document next to it.

Suddenly, a cold sweat broke out from my back...

(End of this chapter)