Ok lads (and any ladettes viewing)
A new way proposed below of extending the operating regime of turbojets to Mach 3+ ...the point where a scramjet can light...
If I am reading it right... you extract electromagnetic energy from the airflow entering the turbojet (thereby slowing the airflow to ~mach 2.5). The electromagnetic energy is then used to excite ions in the exhaust... massively increasing the energy output? Sort of like an electromagnetic afterburner?
Any ppruners with technical expertise pls comment.
"The idea is to extend the operating range of turbomachinery to higher Mach numbers," says Isaiah Blankson, a senior scientist at NASA Glenn Research Center. "We would put a device ahead of the engine to ionise the flow, extract the energy then put it back in the combustor."
By slowing the flow entering the inlet, the operating range of existing turbine engines could be extended to M7, from today's maximum of around M3. Extracting 30-40% of the total energy of the flow would reduce its speed by a half to three-quarters, he says, allowing the turbine engine to operate at M2.8.
The MHD energy bypass cycle was investigated, but not implemented, by the power generation industry in the USA and elsewhere in the 1950s and 1960s as a way of increasing electricity output at peak times. At that time, ionisation was achieved by seeding the flow with cesium. Later electron beams were proposed.