Νew Technologies and Innovation Development in Russia

Russian developers conducted aerodynamic tests of the wing microrelief



The Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute conducted aerodynamic tests of the wing surface microrelief. According to the Institute, the development is a polymer complex of zigzag vortex generators, which should help solve the problem of falling lift on the wing when approaching critical angles of attack in adverse weather conditions or in case of crew errors.

The angle of attack is the angle between the plane of the aerodynamic surface and the vector of the incoming air flow. When the speed and angle of attack on the aerodynamic surface increases, the lifting force increases. However, when a certain one, called critical, is reached, the uniform flow of air around the aerodynamic surface is disrupted, and its separation occurs with the formation of turbulence zones.

When the critical angle of attack is reached or passed, the drag of the aerodynamic surface increases significantly, and the separation of the air flow from it leads to a sharp decrease in lift. The zigzag microrelief developed by TSAGI is designed to delay the separation of the flow from the aerodynamic surfaces of the aircraft and slow down the rate of reduction of lift.

Aerodynamic tests of the microrelief were carried out by specialists in the T-129 tube at air flow speeds from 15 to 20 meters per second. A model of an airplane wing with a microrelief applied to it was used for testing. The studies were conducted at angles of attack from 0 to 35 degrees. At the same time, the researchers tested several locations of the microrelief on the wing.

Studies have shown that the greatest effect of the microrelief was seen when it was located on the leading edge of the wing. In this case, it was possible to increase the maximum lift coefficient and significantly slow down the rate of its decrease at subcritical angles of attack. The specialists also tested the microrelief on the wing with mechanization, where it showed high efficiency when installed on the slat.

At the next stage of testing, TSAGI specialists intend to conduct studies of the microrelief on the main rotor blades of the helicopter. It is assumed that the microrelief on the blade will also be effective, improving the characteristics of the main rotor in conditions of non-stationary flow separation. The appearance of the latter is associated with the rotation of the screw and the constantly changing flow around the blades.

TSAGI experts believe that the use of microrelief on the main rotor blades of the helicopter will improve its aerodynamic characteristics. Thanks to this, in particular, it will be possible to increase the flight speed of the rotorcraft.

Last fall, TSAGI tested a model of the fuselage of an aircraft made in the form of a projectile and having jet vortex generators in the tail section. They are small holes through which air jets are blown out at certain angles under low pressure. Tests of the model at an air flow rate of 30-50 meters per second showed that the vortex generators of the new design work quite efficiently.

Vasily Sychev

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Scientists of the Mendeleev Russian state technical University have grown crystals for optical computers


Russian researchers have discovered a way to produce nonlinear optical crystals in glass. Such crystals allow you to control the properties of light passing through them, to turn invisible infrared radiation into visible.

To obtain them, the glass was treated with intense laser pulses. According to scientists, in the future, such crystals can act as elements of the architecture of a super-productive optical computer.

As the mendeleevs explained, they first synthesized glass, which consists of germanium and lead oxides. Then, to obtain crystals with the specified parameters, the researchers processed such glasses with intense laser pulses. Laser heating caused the glass (which was not originally a crystalline material) to melt, and subsequent cooling caused it to crystallize.

The resulting crystals, scientists note, are called nonlinear-optical. These seemingly unremarkable transparent materials have a special symmetry of structure and allow you to control the properties of light passing through them, including turning invisible infrared radiation into visible light.

Such crystals are used in laser technology, the researchers explain. However, for applications in the field of photonic computing, it was necessary to reduce optical elements to a micron size and integrate them together to create optical microchips. This was done by scientists who grew crystals directly in the glass.

"We use the direct laser recording method: using a powerful femtosecond laser, we heat the glass to high temperatures, but we do it very carefully — the heating zone is limited to only a few microns. As a result, with the help of such gentle heating, it is possible to crystallize the specified micro-volumes of glass and create long tracks with an almost monocrystalline structure, which have all the properties of a nonlinear optical crystal," Sergey Lotarev explained.

This is not the first time that the rhtu team has worked on the creation of nonlinear optical crystals. Previously, scientists were able to grow lanthanum borohermanate crystals in glass, which can be used to change the wavelength of laser radiation. Currently, researchers are studying various possibilities of glass crystallization using a laser in order to create other materials with a given microstructure.

A successful combination of the properties of crystals and glass in one material will allow it to be used in the creation of an optical computer, the researchers believe. According to Sergey Lotarev, in the future, microscopic nonlinear optical crystals can function as an integrated electro-optical modulator - an element of the architecture of a super-productive optical computer.

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kvs wrote:

Russia is developing a quantum supercomputer.

Russia is not going to focus on keeping up with conventional computers but instead is betting on quantum computers.  
Currently there are no general purpose quantum computers in spite of flashy announcements based on single task
demonstrators.   Russia has given itself the target to develop 100 qbit computer and the associated software in the
next 3 years.  

To see what quantum supremacy might actually demand, researchers analyzed three different ways quantum circuits that might solve problems conventional computers theoretically find intractable. Instantaneous Quantum Polynomial-Time (IQP) circuits are an especially simple way to connect qubits into quantum circuits. Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) circuits are more advanced, using qubits to find good solutions to optimization problems. Finally, boson sampling circuits use photons instead of qubits, analyzing the paths such photons take after interacting with one another.

Yao [40] expanded Deutsch’s notion of quantum network [12] and formalized
a notion of quantum circuit, which is a quantum analogue of classical Boolean circuit. Different from the
classical Boolean circuit model, a quantum circuit is composed of quantum gates, each of which represents a
unitary transformation acting on a Hilbert space of a small, fixed dimension. To act as a “programmable”
unitary operator, a family of quantum circuits requires the so-called uniformity condition, which ensures that
a blueprint of each quantum circuit is easily rendered. Yao further demonstrated that a uniform family of
quantum circuits is powerful enough to simulate a well-formed quantum Turing machine. As Nishimura and
Ozawa [26] pointed out, the uniformity condition of a quantum circuit family is necessary to precisely capture
quantum polynomial-time computation. With this uniformity condition, BQP and FBQP are characterized
exactly by uniform families of quantum circuits made up of polynomially many quantum gates.

Concrete of incredible strength was created in Russia

A new type of concrete was developed by specialists from the Far Eastern Federal University together with colleagues from the Kazan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. The material is distinguished by high strength, environmental friendliness and frost resistance, due to which it can be used for the construction of structures in the Far North.


The main difference between the new mixture and those used in construction today is the increased early strength. According to the developers, this property will speed up the concreting process by 3-4 times. In addition, the new concrete does not require thermal treatment during pouring, which makes it more environmentally friendly and allows a 70% reduction in overall energy consumption.

When creating a new type of concrete, scientists focused on natural stones, the strength of which is many times greater than modern building mixtures. In the process of developing a promising material, the science of geonics was used, the essence of which is the study of nature-like building materials.

Despite the fact that the mixture created by domestic specialists is several times stronger than ordinary concrete, work on improving its properties will continue. The goal of FEFU engineers is to achieve a material strength rating comparable to that of mountain conglomerates or sandstones.

https://topcor.ru/10730-v-rossii-sozdali-morozoustojchivyj-beton-neverojatnoj-prochnosti.html

kvs wrote:

Russia is developing a quantum supercomputer.

Russia is not going to focus on keeping up with conventional computers but instead is betting on quantum computers.  
Currently there are no general purpose quantum computers in spite of flashy announcements based on single task
demonstrators.   Russia has given itself the target to develop 100 qbit computer and the associated software in the
next 3 years.  

When will electric powered spaceships fly?

Electric rocket motors have an extremely high specific impulse of up to 100 km / s or more, they are not limited in energy, their exhaust velocity (or specific impulse) can be much higher than that available in a chemical jet engine.

Chemical jet engines of spacecraft create thrust due to thermodynamic expansion of a heated propellant gas through a nozzle. But missions that require large speed increments require an alternative method of propulsion that has a higher specific impulse velocity or exhaust gas velocities than can be achieved using thermodynamic expansion on chemical fuels. The spacecraft's electrical installation offers just such an opportunity.

The propulsion system of the Space Shuttle combines the main types of chemical rocket engines: side boosters - solid propellants; sustainer engines - liquid-propellant rocket engine. But such engines are energy limited because chemicals have a fixed amount of energy per unit mass, which limits the achievable exhaust velocity or specific impulse.

Many rocket motors are extremely small. For example, attitude thrusters on satellites do not generate much thrust at all. Sometimes satellites practically do not use fuel - gaseous nitrogen under pressure is ejected from the reservoir through a nozzle.

The spacecraft's electric propulsion systems create thrust using electrical and possibly magnetic processes to accelerate particles using energy generated by solar panels. New designs must find a way to accelerate ions or atomic particles to high speeds to make thrust more efficient.  

Electric propulsion systems are not limited in energy. By neglecting component life considerations, an arbitrarily large amount of energy can be delivered (from a solar or nuclear power system) to a given mass of propellant, so that the exhaust velocity (or specific impulse) can be much greater than that available from a chemical propulsion system.

Electric vehicles have a lower thrust-to-mass ratio (and therefore lower acceleration), but they can have higher total impulses (the product of specific impulse and fuel mass equal to the total impulse change) than a chemical propulsion system. Thus, while a chemical propulsion system can provide a high thrust-to-mass ratio, fuel is consumed in a short time at a low specific impulse. In contrast, an electric propulsion system with a low thrust-to-mass ratio can operate for periods ranging from hours to years and generate greater overall momentum.  

Exceptionally high specific impulse  

Electric rocket motors have an exceptionally high specific impulse of up to 100 km / s or more. However, this also requires a significant energy consumption (1-100 kW / N of thrust) and a small ratio of thrust to the cross-sectional area of ​​the jet stream (no more than 100 kN / m2), which limits the maximum expedient thrust of the EP to several tens of Newtons. The disadvantage of electric rocket engines is also the low acceleration of the spacecraft, which is tenths or even hundredths of the gravitational acceleration (g), which limits the use of such engines only in outer space. Therefore, to launch a spacecraft from Earth to other planets, it is necessary to combine conventional chemical rocket engines with electric ones.

The principle of operation of electric propulsion systems is based on the conversion of electrical energy into directed kinetic energy of particles, using the electrical energy of the onboard power plant of the spacecraft.

Conceived by Tsiolkovsky

For the first time, the idea of ​​using electric energy for the flight of rockets was expressed by K.E. Tsiolkovsky back in 1912. In his article "Exploration of world spaces by jet devices" (Bulletin of Aeronautics, No. 9, 1912), he wrote: "... with the help of electricity, it will be possible to impart tremendous speed to the particles ejected from the jet device ...". In 1916-1917. R. Goddard experimentally confirmed the reality of the implementation of this idea.

One of the first operating electric rocket engines was created under the leadership of V.P. Glushko in 1929-1933. Subsequently, for some time, work on the development of the electric propulsion engine was discontinued.

They only resumed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. and by the beginning of the 1980s. in the USSR and the USA, about 50 different designs of electric rocket engines were tested as part of spacecraft and high-altitude atmospheric probes.

Currently, EJEs are widely used in spacecraft: both in satellites and in interplanetary spacecraft. There are three main types of electric propellers, which are classified according to the method used to accelerate the fuel as electrothermal, electrostatic and electromagnetic. Practical propulsion systems often use two or even all three of these methods at the same time. Let's take a look at some of them.

Electrothermal engine

Electrothermal propulsion systems accelerate the movement of fuel by heating. There are three subtypes: resistive, jet, and inductively or radiation heated systems.

Resistive devices work by passing gaseous fuel through an electric heater and then expanding it through a conventional nozzle to create thrust. They usually operate as advanced chemical propulsion systems, where electrical heating is used to further expand and accelerate fuel that has already undergone a chemical reaction.

To date, the most successful application of this method is overheating of catalytically decomposed hydrazine, which gives an advantage in the use of fuel with the often used mono-fuel chemical propulsion system.

The specific impulse that can be achieved with hydrazine resistive jets is limited because the molecular weight of the gases used is relatively high, while the maximum heating surface temperature that can be maintained with available materials is limited to about 3000 K. about 3500 ms -1 (I sp = 350 s), about 40% better than without overheating, with an efficiency of up to 80%.

An electric rocket propulsion system consists of the EJE itself, the structure of which depends on its type, working fluid supply systems, control systems and power supply. Electrothermal RD heats the flow of the working fluid due to the heat generated by the heating element or in an electric arc. Helium, ammonia, hydrazine, nitrogen and other inert gases are used as a working fluid, less often hydrogen.

Resistive motors were first used experimentally in space in the mid-sixties. Their first operational use was in the 1980s to hold north-south stations on Intelsat-V series geostationary communications satellites. They were also used for orbiting, attitude control and orbit control of the Iridium satellite constellation.

For electrothermal propulsion systems, in order to achieve exhaust gas velocities significantly higher than 10,000 ms-1, portions of the flow must reach temperatures in excess of 10,000 K while still not in contact with the engine walls. Jet engines do this by passing gases through an electric arc, which heats them up before they expand through a nozzle.

Core temperatures from 10,000 to 20,000 K mean that when catalytically decomposed hydrazine is used, exhaust velocities of 5000 - 6000 m s -1 (I sp = 500 - 600 s) are possible with an efficiency of about 40%.

Arcjet engines were brought into commercial use for north-south stations supporting the Telstar-4 series of geostationary communications satellites in 1993. More powerful engines have been demonstrated in test flights, providing sufficient thrust for orbiting or for primary thrust maneuvers, but problems with erosion and availability of electrodes, sufficient electrical power delayed their use for operational tasks.

Ion engine

The propulsion system of the Space Shuttle combines the main types of chemical rocket engines: side boosters - solid propellants; sustainer engines - liquid-propellant rocket engine. But such engines are energy limited because chemicals have a fixed amount of energy per unit mass, which limits the achievable exhaust velocity or specific impulse.

Electrostatic propulsion systems accelerate ionized fuel using an electric field. The main methods are field electrostatic thrusters (FEEP), colloidal thrusters, and grid-ion accelerators.  

In gridded electrostatic ion accelerators, also known as ion thrusters, ions are generated in a magnetically insulating ionization chamber using DC discharge, RF energy, or tuned electronic cyclotron resonance. The exit from the ionization chamber is closed by a double lattice structure with a space between the lattices from half to one millimeter through which the ion acceleration potential is supplied. Ions that approach the inner (screen) grid are extracted from the chamber and accelerated by the field between the grids. Ionic optics are designed to minimize collisions with the external accelerating grid.    

Electrons are extracted from the chamber by the anode and pumped by a power supply to an external cathode / neutralizer held slightly above the potential of the accelerating grating. Electrons from the cathode combine with the outgoing ion stream to neutralize it. Neutralizing the ion flux is necessary because the release of charged particles from the spacecraft causes the vehicle itself to receive a charge that affects the operation of other systems in the spacecraft and can cause permanent damage. In addition, without neutralization, the resulting ion beam will depend on its own internal potential. Ion engines achieve an exhaust speed in the region of 30,000 m s -1 (I cn = 3000 s). The ESA spacecraft EURECA demonstrated the operation of RITA, an ion engine using radio frequency ionization, in 1992. Ion engines have been in service since the mid-nineties to service stations on geostationary satellites. In 1998, NASA's Deep Space 1 became the first interplanetary mission to use ion propulsion.  

Ion engines suffer from a low thrust density (available thrust per unit of exhaust area) because the maximum ion current density that can be maintained is limited by the space charge distortion of the applied electric field. One of the advantages of the Hall-effect thruster chosen for the SMART-1 over an electrostatic ion motor is that, since the plasma in a Hall-effect motor remains virtually neutral due to the presence of electrons that make up the Hall current, they are capable of withstand higher ion current densities and therefore offer greater thrust density.

One of the options is the "mini-helicon plasma pusher" by the Russian scientist Oleg Batishchev. The gas enters the cylindrical quartz chamber. A metal winding is wound on it, which creates a strong magnetic field inside the chamber. A special design antenna is located nearby, which serves as a source of short-wave radio emission. It creates an electrical breakdown in the gas, which leads to the birth of an ion-electron plasma. The external magnetic field is calculated in such a way that it strongly accelerates the plasma flows and directs them to the exit from the chamber. Thanks to this, jet thrust arises. This thrust can be controlled by changing the rate of gas supply and the supply of electromagnetic energy.

A plasma rocket engine is a type of electric motor that generates thrust from a quasi-neutral plasma. This type of thruster often generates a plasma source using radio frequency or microwave energy using an external antenna. This fact, combined with the absence of hollow cathodes (which are very sensitive to all gases except a few noble gases), allows this type of thruster to be used on a huge range of propellants.

Benefits

Why are plasma engines better than conventional chemical engines, in particular liquid-propellant rocket engines (LRE)? The main advantage is in the specific impulse, i.e., roughly speaking, in the speed with which the engine throws out the jet stream.

The jet speed of liquid-propellant rocket engines ranges from about 2 km / s for the simplest thermocatalytic engines, up to 4.5 km / s for the best models of engines operating on hydrogen and oxygen.

What is a record for liquid-propellant rocket engines is a mediocre result for plasma engines, typical only of the first unfinished prototypes. As a rule, the speed of a jet of a plasma engine is at the level of 10 km / s or more. Some engines provide 30-50 km / s. There is essentially no limit here! The speed is limited only by the fact that the higher it is, the more electricity the engine spends to create the same thrust. Therefore, an excessive increase in speed is not justified, for each situation there is some optimal value.

In addition, plasma engines of this type have the following advantages: extreme simplicity and, accordingly, low cost of the design (in particular, there are no separate storage and supply systems for the working fluid); very high reliability; the ability to work on a variety of working bodies; compactness and low weight; absence of compressed gases, toxic, chemically active, fire hazardous, etc. substances, i.e. absolute safety of the engine in the off state; simplicity of power consumption adjustment, operability at an arbitrarily low power supply (you can charge a capacitor in a tenth of a second, or you can - in tens of seconds).

Plasma engines have a much higher specific impulse (Isp) value than most other types of rocket technology. Thus, the VASIMR engine is capable of reaching a pulse value of more than 12,000. This is much higher than the bicomponent chemical engines, which can reach a pulse of 450. With high momentum, plasma-powered rockets are capable of reaching relatively high speeds.

The propulsion system of the Space Shuttle combines the main types of chemical rocket engines: side boosters - solid propellants; sustainer engines - liquid-propellant rocket engine. But such engines are energy limited because chemicals have a fixed amount of energy per unit mass, which limits the achievable exhaust velocity or specific impulse.

The future of plasma engines lies in two diametrically opposite directions: engines for nanosatellites (spacecraft weighing within 10 kg) and high-power engines for large orbital maneuvers and flights to other bodies of the solar system.

Alas, there are also disadvantages ...

First, the low efficiency, which is usually 8-15% for this type of engine.

Secondly, a small supply of working fluid. After all, the engine does not have any external tank with a working fluid, all that is is a small amount inside the engine itself. As a result, for such engines, such a parameter as “specific impulse” loses its meaning; instead, “full impulse” is used - the product of the mass of the working fluid in the engine and the speed of its expiration. In the very first engine, this value was at the level of 1500 N * s, which is quite a bit.

Electric rocket motors currently have the following applications:

- orientation of spacecraft in space (rotations around the axes);
- correction of small orbital disturbances;
- small orbital maneuvers (for example, leaving a geostationary orbit to a disposal orbit);
- transfer between remote orbits (for example, from a geostationary transfer orbit to a geostationary one);
- flights to other bodies of the solar system, since plasma engines are better suited for long-distance interplanetary space travel.

Science and technology are developing rapidly and we will probably soon hear news about new electric rocket engines created.

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