Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet Booster

Why in news?

• Recently, India successfully flight tested Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet (SFDR) Booster, a missile system, at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur off the Odisha coast.

About Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet Booster:

• SFDR technology is a missile propulsion system based on the concept of Ramjet Engine principle. The system utilizes a solid fuelled air-breathing ramjet engine.
• It is jointly developed by India and Russia.
• The DRDO began developing SFDR in 2017 and had conducted successful tests in 2018 and 2019 as well.

What is ramjet engine?

• A ramjet is a form of air-breathing jet engine that uses the vehicle’s forward motion to compress incoming air for combustion without a rotating compressor.
• Fuel is injected in the combustion chamber where it mixes with the hot compressed air and ignites.
• A ramjet-powered vehicle requires assisted take-off like a rocket assist to accelerate it to a speed where it begins to produce thrust.
• Ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds around Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound) and can operate up to speeds of Mach 6.However, the ramjet efficiency starts to drop when the vehicle reaches hypersonic speeds.

Advantages of ramjet engine:

• Ramjet is very simple in construction and does not have any moving part such as compressor and turbine.
• It is very cheap and requires almost no maintenance.
• Greater thrust per unit engine weight than any other propulsion engine at supersonic speed except rocket.
• At very high speed and high altitudes the specific fuel consumption is less than turbojet engine
• It can be operated with any type of liquid fuels and even with solid nuclear fuels

What is Scramjet engine?

• A scramjet engine is an improvement over the ramjet engine.
• Uniqueness about the scramjet technology is that it draws oxygen from the air when the rocket travels through the atmosphere.
• Ordinary rockets do the same. They also draw the oxygen from air but they use compressor to draw in air, compress and ignite to burn the fuel. the scramjet’s heating and compression is done by movement of rocket itself as it is moving at supersonic speed. Thus, it is known as Supersonic Combustion Ramjet, or Scramjet.

Significance SFDR technology:

• It enables the missile to intercept aerial threats at very long range at supersonic speeds.
• At present, such technology is available only with a handful of countries in the world.
• Air-to-air missiles which use SFDR technology can achieve longer ranges as they do not require oxidisers (take oxygen from the atmosphere).
• The missile based on SFDR fly at supersonic speeds and high manoeuvrability ensures the target aircraft cannot get away.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Consider the following statements:

1. A ramjet is a form of air-breathing jet engine that uses the vehicle’s forward motion to compress incoming air for combustion without a rotating compressor

2. Scramjet engine draws oxygen from the air when the rocket travels through the atmosphere.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer