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Inspired by a comment to this question "How does the Sabre engine's pre-cooler achieve such high performance?": the comment was that Reaction Engines have demonstrated that the pre-cooler works on a test stand.
Question: In what way was the test representative of the intended altitude and vehicle velocity conditions and what shortfalls, if any, are unavoidable?
In 2012, the precooler was tested at ambient temperature/pressure (there have been lots more test runs, but this one was well-publicized and there's video).
In the summer of 2018, the precooler will be tested at 1000 ºC inlet conditions (comparable to the conditions at Mach 5), using a J79 engine from an F-4 as a hot air source.
The HTX test programme is a manufacturing and performance ground level demonstration of a pre-cooler type heat exchanger in a high enthalpy (temperature) environment, similar to that expected to be seen by the SABRE engine during its air-breathing flight regime – up to ~1000°C air inlet temperature.
The pre-cooler is designed to absorb over 5 megawatts of heat energy from the incoming hot air passing through it so that the outlet air temperature is just above ambient.
