Mr William Silverthorne
Contact
- Email: k1706403@kingston.ac.uk
- Location: Roehampton Vale
- Faculty: Faculty of Engineering, Computing and the Environment
- School: School of Engineering and the Environment
- Department: Department of Aerospace and Aircraft Engineering
Research project: The Design and Testing of a Variable-Geometry Multi-Mode Ramjet Engine Intended to Remove the Need for Turbomachinery in Air-Breathing Spaceplane Propulsion
Abstract
The project revolves around the design of the Multi-Mode Ramjet, an engine that operates as a Pulse Detonation Engine at low airspeed and a Rotating Detonation Ramjet at high airspeed.
Although difficult to control, detonation-based combustion promises a huge leap in fuel efficiency in an engine that is lighter and cheaper than a deflagration-based equivalent.
- Research degree: PhD
- Title of project: The Design and Testing of a Variable-Geometry Multi-Mode Ramjet Engine Intended to Remove the Need for Turbomachinery in Air-Breathing Spaceplane Propulsion
- Research supervisor: Dr Peter Shaw
Biography
My time in aerospace engineering began in 2017 when I started my BEng in Aerospace Engineering, Astronautics and Space Technology here at KU.
Through my Bachelors I worked on some fun and interesting projects, including:
The 2018 IMechE Challenge, in which my group built a CO2-propelled rocket to carry a chain up a pipe.
The design of a water rocket with an inertial tracking system and deployable wings.
A summer internship in which I dug out the university's ground station hardware and started setting it up.
Project manager of the 2019-20 BEng Group project designing a hybrid rocket. Didn't quite manage to make hardware due to the pandemic, but did design a couple of interesting engines!
My Bachelors individual project, 'The design of a Hybrid Induction Pump - Induction Heater for the movement of molten metals', which was similarly disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak.
And now my PhD!
Areas of research interest
- Aerospace Propulsion
- Detonation Control for Propulsion
- Spaceplanes
- Space Launch Vehicles
Qualifications
- BEng: Aerospace Engineering, Astronautics and Space Technology, Kingston