According to Jeff Engel, COO of Reaction Systems Inc., "in hypersonic flight the combustor temperature gets so high that materials can’t survive in that environment; you have to continually cool the combustor sections."
Reaction Systems is developing a fuel system to absorb that heat load from the combustor specifically, so that the final speed of the vehicle is faster. But transferring the heat to the working fluid, while providing a maximum surface area for catalysis inside the heat exchanger, is essentially impossible to achieve with conventional heat exchanger fabrication technologies.
Additive Manufacturing from Faustson Tool Corporation is enabling the heat exchange technology: Faustson’s Concept Laser M2 cusing Multilaser can build with a variety of high-performance alloys, including cobalt-chromium grades, Ti6Al4V, pure titanium and the material for Reaction Systems’ heat exchanger, Inconel 718.
