Recently, Professor Zonglin Jiang and CAS member Hongru Yu published an article entitled “Theories and technologies for duplicating hypersonic flight conditions for ground testing” on the “National Science Review”, Perspectives section. The impact factor of this journal in 2016 was 8.8, the 5th among the comprehensive scientific journals in the world. This article introduces the original and significant achievements of science and technology made by Institute of Mechanics in constructing and developing JF12 duplicating hypersonic flight condition shock tunnel. These theories and technologies for duplicating hypersonic flight conditions build up the international leading position of China in hypersonic and hypervelocity ground testing facilities.

Physical issues for developing a long-test-duration shock tunnel

In 2016, Prof. Jiang won AIAA 2016 Ground Test Award due to this outstanding achievement. The AIAA Committee honors the achievement of Jiang as “Jiang’s work has advanced the state of the art in large-scale hypersonic test facilities, which are necessary to test air vehicles at speeds above Mach 5. Jiang and his team created a hypervelocity detonation-drive shock tunnel capable of duplicating flight conditions at speeds ranging from Mach 5 to Mach 9 at altitudes between 20 and 50 kilometers. Jiang’s design uses no moving parts and generates a longer test-duration and a higher energy flow than more traditionally designed tunnels.”