Jane Edwards
The U.S. arm of U.K.-based Reaction Engines completed testing of its thermal management platform designed to power engines for high-Mach flight at its Colorado site as part of the Foreign Comparative Testing campaign that was first announced in July.
The company said Monday it demonstrated its engine precooler heat exchanger in partnership with the Department of Defense and the Air Force Research Laboratory through the FCT program, which seeks to evaluate maturing tech platforms that could meet defense requirements.
Andrew Piotti, director of engineering at Reaction Engines’ U.S. subsidiary, said the FCT campaign helped broaden the demonstrated capabilities of the company’s engine precooler technology.
“During these recent tests, the precooler successfully achieved our objective of over 10 megawatts of transferred thermal energy from the high-temperature airflow, which is three times higher than our previous test program,” Piotti added.
The company had to add a new water coolant system and expand its testing facility to deliver the needed airflow conditions that simulate the conditions expected during high-Mach flight.
