Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
The prospect of sustained supersonic flight has, in recent years, greatly stimulated research on the many problems involving temperature and heat transfer which must be solved before this prospect becomes a reality. Aerodynamicists have been investigating the nature and intensity of the heat loading. Metallurgists have intensified their research on the properties of conventional materials, and they have been joined by physicists, chemists, and engineers in the quest for new materials of construction. Research on relevant structural problems has begun with a number of theoretical and experimental studies of structural components under thermal loading, and laboratories are now being prepared for the full-scale simulation of the thermal conditions predicted in supersonic flight.