Sarah BALLAND, A. Jacob
DOI Number: N/A
Conference number: HiSST-2025-293
Hypersonic flight exposes vehicles to harsh, combined environments, including aerodynamic heating, extreme mechanical loads, and vibrational stresses, all sustained over significant durations. To validate critical systems, ground-based tests must replicate these environments accurately. One of the main challenges is the simultaneous application and interaction of these diverse and demanding environments within a single, integrated test. For instance, thermo-structural resistance validation tests must impose both thermal and mechanical loads representative of hypersonic flight. Developing such ground tests involves several iterative design loops: identifying load cases through dedicated numerical
simulations of the trajectory, defining a test program, designing a representative mock-up, and developing test facilities that can interface with the mock-up and coordinate to replicate hypersonic flight loads consistently. This study presents an overview of some combined tests employed by MBDA France to validate hypersonic vehicle concepts within its testing facilities. The first part of the paper describes some various combined tests conducted during the development phase, detailing their objectives and the main challenges encountered. The second part focuses on a specific combined test involving thermal loading and fuel tank draining. This section outlines the objective of such tests, provides a detailed description of the mock-up and its representativeness to the actual flight vehicle, explains the thermal loads, outlines the instrumentation and experimental setup, presents the post-test analysis method, and discusses the key challenges faced. This paper contributes to the understanding of integrated testing approaches for hypersonic vehicles, highlighting the importance of representative testing conditions and the complexities involved in validating these advanced systems.