A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 230 Saturation Research and Development

"Check the laser pulse timing."

Chen Hui remained calm, tapping rapidly on the circuit board with his fingers. "It might be high-frequency interference from the synchronization controller."

Researcher Lin Zhengze quickly stepped forward to replace the controller.

However, the problem persisted even after replacing the controller with a spare!

They had been preparing for this experiment for more than half a month. If it failed due to this accident, even if they could find the cause quickly, they would still have to wait for more than half a month. Chen Hui did not want to wait that long.

The researchers around were still trying to troubleshoot the problem, but it was all in vain.

A sense of gloom permeated the laboratory.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chen Hui suddenly caught a glimpse of the infrared thermal imager data in the corner of the wall, which showed that the temperature at the entrance of the combustion chamber model was 80K higher than expected.

“Wait a minute,” he said, turning to Wu Zhiwei, “it’s not a malfunction—it’s that the airflow has switched prematurely.”

“Transition?” Wu Zhiwei was stunned. “In the pre-simulation, the boundary layer should transition at x=250mm, but it’s only at x=180mm now…”

“The air molecules in the high enthalpy flow are dissociating earlier than expected!” Chen Hui’s eyes were sharp, as if two beams of light were shooting out from them. He pulled up the real-time heat flux density curve. “The wall heat flux is 30% higher than the predicted value, which means that the shock wave attaches earlier, the boundary layer is heated earlier, and the transition position is moved forward.”

His finger traced an arc on the aerodynamic diagram. "The original PIV observation window was set at x=200mm, but now the shock wave is at x=180mm. The velocity field there is not the expected 'untransitional laminar flow' at all, but a 'turbulent mixing zone'—no wonder the camera can't capture clear particle trajectories, the flow field is too chaotic!"

Everything suddenly became clear.

But the team remained silent.

The original plan was to obtain data on the "laminar-turbulent transition point" through PIV, but now the transition point is 70mm earlier, and all preset measurement points deviate from the actual flow field.

Even more troublesome, the micro thermocouples on the surface of the combustion chamber model started to alarm – the wall temperature exceeded the material's tolerance limit (3800K), and tiny ablation pits appeared at the edge of the ZrB coating.

"The observation location must be adjusted."

Chen Hui stated unequivocally, "Move the PIV camera to x=150mm, where it is still in the 'clean zone unaffected by shock waves'."

He quickly pulled up a three-dimensional model of the combustion chamber on the flat plate. "At the same time, he used the LIF system to monitor the OH concentration at x=120mm. If the transition occurs earlier, the core area of ​​the fuel mixture will move upstream of the combustion chamber."

“But the window with x=150mm is a spare hole,” Wu Zhiwei hesitated. “The quartz glass is only 3mm thick, and it may crack under high temperature.”

Chen Hui also calmed down.

But the experiment had already begun, and there simply wasn't enough time for him to think.

“Reinforce it with copper mesh, then pour a layer of water-cooling adhesive.” Chen Hui turned to Lin Zhengze. “Every minute we delay increases the risk of the combustion chamber burning through. Professor Lin, contact the processing team and have the reinforcement window delivered within ten minutes.”

Ten minutes later, the reinforced observation window was installed.

Chen Hui personally adjusted the angle of the PIV laser to ensure that the beam could penetrate the core of the turbulence.

When the new trigger signal lit up, a chorus of breathing filled the hall—the camera captured clear particle trajectories. Despite the obvious background noise, the degree of distortion of the streamlines confirmed Chen Hui's judgment—the shock wave did indeed attach at x=178mm, and the boundary layer transition point was 65mm earlier than the pre-simulation.

"Now look at the LIF data!" Xiao Wu suddenly shouted.

On the screen, the fluorescence image of OH radicals shows that the peak position of the combustion zone has moved from x=110mm in the pre-simulation to x=95mm.

“The fuel mixing is ahead of schedule!” Chen Hui’s fingers flew across the tablet computer, calculating rapidly. “The earlier transition leads to increased wall friction and greater energy loss in the airflow. To maintain the total temperature, the fuel injection angle needs to be reduced by 2° – which matches the ‘catalytic reaction acceleration term’ I added to the modified model!”

It turns out that Chen Hui had specifically considered the catalytic dissociation effect of the wall coating on H molecules at high temperatures in the model. This item was set as a "minor parameter" in the pre-simulation. However, at this moment, the LIF data showed that the correlation between the peak OH concentration and the catalytic reaction rate was 40% higher than expected. It was this correction that allowed the model to maintain its predictive ability even in the extreme case of an earlier transition.

"Adjust the fuel injection angle and restart combustion!" Chen Hui's voice was filled with excitement.

When H fuel is injected into the mainstream at a new angle, the pressure curve in the combustion chamber gradually stabilizes, the temperature peak of the infrared thermal imager drops back to 2780K, the PIV system finally captures the complete velocity field, the shock wave is clearly visible, the separation bubble size has an error of only 2% with the corrected CFD model, and the OH concentration distribution perfectly matches the theoretical prediction!
"Success!" Lin Zhengze cheered. When Chen Hui came to the lab, he had some doubts because of Chen Hui's age, but he didn't expect them to achieve results so quickly. It was incredible!
Chen Hui stared at the error curve on the screen, deep in thought—downstream of the combustion zone, the heat flux density predicted by CFD was still 5% higher than that in the experiment.

He quickly pulled up the microstructure diagram of the wall and found a tiny crack in the coating at x=220mm—a defect that was missed during the laser thickness measurement last night.

After marking the defect location in the model, Chen Hui breathed a sigh of relief. The next time might be the final moment, but for now, he needed more data.

Mathematics doesn't lie, but it needs more real data.

……

After a good night's rest, Chen Hui woke up at six o'clock sharp, washed up, ate something, and began to study papers and deduce models. It wasn't until eight o'clock that Chen Hui went to the cafeteria, ate some breakfast, and then went to the laboratory.

As soon as Chen Hui entered the lab, he sensed that something was off.

"Hello, I am He Guowei, a researcher at the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences."

A middle-aged stranger appeared in the laboratory and came up to say hello.

"Hello."

Chen Hui responded politely, but his gaze was fixed on Duan Xiaofei, the chief engineer of Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group.

Duan Xiaofei smiled wryly, "This is Academician He, an expert in fluid mechanics!"

"Due to some special reasons, some fluid-related problems urgently needed to be solved, so Academician He was sent over again to form a research group to study combustion oscillation and thermal blockage with Professor Chen."

"However, Academician He's research is parallel to Professor Chen's, and you do not interfere with each other."

"But Academician He has just arrived and is short-staffed, so I came to ask if anyone would like to join Academician He's research team."

After much explanation, Chen Hui finally understood: well, they were planning to poach his employees.

"It's not that they don't interfere with each other."

He Guowei added from the side, "It's just like our usual scientific research collaborations. Everyone does their own research and shares the results. One person's strength is limited, but many hands make light work."

"I just arrived. If Professor Chen doesn't mind, I hope you can share your previous research data with me. Of course, if I have any further results, I will share them with you as well."

"no problem."

Chen Hui nodded, "Zhengze, could you share our recent research data and findings with Academician He?"

"And you, anyone who wants to join Academician He's research team can submit an application now." To He Guowei's surprise, Chen Hui was surprisingly easy to talk to.

"Thank you so much, Professor Chen, for your strong support!"

He Guowei looked at Chen Hui with a face full of gratitude; he was truly grateful.

He knew that his behavior might attract a lot of hatred, but he had no choice in order to complete the research task. Without the help of experienced people, it would not be easy for him to carry out his work.

He was still quite confident as to whether these people would go with him.

As an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he is quite famous in the fields of turbulence and computational fluid dynamics, and has made many commendable achievements, including statistical theory and computational models of turbulence, multi-scale large eddy simulation methods, micro-nano scale flow, and nonlinear dynamics.

Ordinary people may not know, but these researchers who study fighter jet engines cannot possibly not know. Even if they don't know him, they should at least give him some respect as an academician.

Chen Hui has indeed made remarkable achievements in mathematics, but he has only just entered this field. Following him might lead to results, but that would be many years from now. However, following him, results could probably be achieved much sooner.

He felt that these researchers should understand this principle very well.

Therefore, it's foreseeable that after doing this, it's hard to say whether Chen Hui's research team will even have any members left.

He knew Chen Hui understood this as well, but Chen Hui still cooperated with him. This alone made him admire Chen Hui greatly and couldn't help but feel a deep respect for the young man in front of him.

However, as his mind raced, he discovered that none of the researchers opposite him stepped forward.

Not to mention him, even Duan Xiaofei was somewhat puzzled.

One is a greenhorn, the other is an expert in this field; the choice should be obvious.

"Everyone need not worry. We are all serving our country. There is no right or wrong. Even if you join my team, our data and results will be shared with Professor Chen."

He Guowei spoke up, saying that he felt everyone was just trying to save face.

"We want to do research with Professor Chen."

A young researcher spoke up.

The atmosphere in the laboratory gradually became awkward.

“Academician He is an expert in this field. Although he may not be as famous in mathematics as Professor Chen, but…”

Duan Xiaofei was about to try and save face for He Guowei, but the young researcher continued, "We know who Academician He is and we know his abilities, but we just want to do research with Professor Chen."

Duan Xiaofei was taken aback and looked at the other people in the laboratory. Unexpectedly, he saw the same expression on their faces.

So what exactly happened that, in just half a month, everyone was captivated by Chen Hui's personal charm?
He didn't know that if He Guowei had come a few days earlier, the outcome might have been different. But now, Chen Hui had just achieved a breakthrough, and all of this had only taken half a month. How could they, who had witnessed Chen Hui's amazing abilities, suddenly switch to an unknown new team?

They're not stupid unless the organization forces them to.

"It's alright, I'll just gather more people from other places. I might need your guidance then."

He Guowei was embarrassed, but not very angry. He was just full of suspicion, not knowing what had happened. He knew Chen Hui was strong, but he was originally very confident in himself. He never expected that this would be the result.

Although he was an academician, he dared not lose his temper with Chen Hui. It was precisely because he was an academician that he knew Chen Hui's future achievements were bound to be limitless, and he also knew how much the elders valued this young man.

This little incident did not bring about significant changes to Chen Hui's research; everything proceeded as planned. Meanwhile, Academician He Guowei's team quickly took shape. The title of academician was still very useful; even though it did not work in Chen Hui's laboratory, he still quickly assembled a team.

"Are we really just going to hand over our research findings to them like this?"

In the laboratory, Lin Zheng looked at Chen Hui with a reluctant expression.

He was in charge of communicating with He Guowei's team recently. He originally thought that Chen Hui just wanted him to provide some data collected in their experiments. Although there were many ingenious ideas in this data, everyone was working towards the same goal. They were colleagues, and sharing data was for the greater good. He didn't have much of an opinion.

But to his surprise, Chen Hui not only asked him to share data, but also to share his research results with Academician He.

Chen Hui glanced at the stable operation of the experiment before smiling and saying, "The Great Wall wasn't built by one person, and building fighter jets is a huge project. We definitely can't do it alone."

“Those data are from several days ago. We have already started the next phase of experiments. If they can achieve breakthrough results before us, we should be happy. Isn’t this saving each other time?”

Chen Hui was very confident in himself. He believed that he should be able to complete the next breakthrough before He Guowei, but he also genuinely felt that it would be a good thing if the other party could complete the breakthrough ahead of time.

Lin Zheng hesitated. Although he felt that Chen Hui's words made sense, he still felt uncomfortable giving away all his hard work to someone else.

In the lab next door, He Guowei stared blankly at the data shared by Chen Hui for a long time.

He originally only wanted Chen Hui's experimental data. He didn't expect that Chen Hui would even share his own results with him. He had only compromised because of Chen Hui's status, but now he really felt a bit of respect for this kid.

Moreover, looking at the model on the screen and the final experimental data, He Guowei was filled with amazement.

"Xiao Wei, how long has Professor Chen been at Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group?"

He turned to ask his assistant.

"A little over two weeks."

Xiao Wei stated definitively that Chen Hui's whereabouts were a mystery to the outside world, but the people at Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAC) knew the truth.

"Only half a month?!"

He Guowei was startled.

In just over half a month, this little guy has achieved such results.

He suddenly felt a great sense of urgency. When Zhan Tang contacted him, he was full of fighting spirit, believing that he had been immersed in this field for many years and could not be worse than a young guy.

But now it seems that if he doesn't hurry up, he might just become a failed control group.

Looking at the data and models on the computer screen, He Guowei cheered up again. He wasn't very confident before, but with this data, he was confident that he would achieve results within one or two years!
He Guowei's smile grew wider and wider. He had been studying this field for many years, and Chen Hui's model had solved a problem that had troubled him for many years. It was like a timely boost for him.

He is confident that he will soon achieve results!
At worst, we can just account for 30% of that kid's contribution!

(End of this chapter)