Thermodynamic-Dynamic coupling and exergy analysis during transient maneuvers of a hypersonic vehicle

Abstract

© 2025 Elsevier Masson SASThe increasing demand for ultrafast aerospace transportation and high-performance strategic systems has fueled the interest in air-breathing hypersonic vehicles. However, their design still presents considerable challenges owing to the tight coupling between the thermodynamic and flight dynamic phenomena. This study proposes an integrated simulation framework capable of representing the coupled behavior of a six-degree-of-freedom hypersonic vehicle and a multi-stage scramjet engine model. The proposed framework incorporates atmospheric variation, aerodynamic and mass models, actuator dynamics, and energy-based thrust modeling under transient conditions. The objective was to evaluate the dynamic and thermodynamic responses of a vehicle during flight maneuvers. To that end, several scenarios were simulated, including descent and transition to level flight, acceleration and deceleration. The results demonstrate that the model captures the strong transients associated with ignition, control response, and inlet compression modulation. Thermodynamic analysis revealed consistent heat transfer, irreversibility, and exergy trends, with the combustion stages being the main source of entropy generation. The propulsive efficiency and specific impulse evolve coherently with thrust demand and flight conditions, whereas control logic successfully stabilizes critical thermodynamic parameters during maneuvering. These findings validate the capacity of the framework to reproduce the coupled dynamics of scramjet-powered hypersonic flights, providing a solid basis for future studies on optimization and thermodynamic analysis.

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