Corral Discusses Hypersonics in US and China
The University of Arizona holds a strong national presence in hypersonics research, but on an international scale, the United States is lagging behind China. In a kind of arms race, both countries are researching hypersonic vehicles that can vehicles travel at more than five times the speed of sound. Earlier this year, China successfully launched a rocket carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle in a surprise to the United States. Two key elements to these advancements are artificial intelligence and materials science.
"There are institutes in China for materials alone that train over 7,000 people a year," said MSE associate professor Erica Corral in an interview with Newsy. "Materials science engineering departments in this country are like 60. So our numbers don't compare to China."
Corral researches high-temperature materials that can withstand the pressures of hypersonic flight. She is developing ceramics that have melting points above 3,000 degrees celsius. However, she says "there is no domestic source for the ceramics in [her] lab, and it's not cheap or abundant."
"Coming up with strategies to evaluate the material under extreme environments is a huge challenge because we're trying to reconstruct the behavior that the materials would exhibit on land," Corral said.