ONERA JOINS HyFAR-ARA

On May 15th 2024, the administration board of HyFAR-ARA officially validated ONERA as new member of the association. ONERA is the 9th organization to join the association.

 

ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales) is The French Aerospace Lab, a research establishment of Ministry of Defence. On May 15th 2024, the administration board unanimously approved ONERA’s membership to the HyFAR-ARA association. We are honored to welcome a major player of the hypersonic community in France and beyond, whose presence will strengthen the association’s expertise and bring a major contribution to the fulfillment of its missions.

ONERA’s missions are threefold :

  • Developing and leading research activities in the aerospace field
  • Designing, developing and deploying required resources to conduct these investigations
  • Disseminate and ensure the industrial valorization of research results at a national and international level

ONERA is in particular in charge of :

  • Conducting itself, or asking a third party to conduct, any study and research relevant to the aerospace industry, on its own initiative or upon request
  • Developing and operating test facilities or computational tools for the benefit of aerospace research and industry
  • Networking with French and international organisms whose activities may contribute to aerospace research advancement
  • Disseminating and promoting the research results, in particular through publications, patents and operating licenses
  • Fostering new research activities or their development for the benefit of aerospace industry and research
  • As an expert in the field, supporting on demand official organizations and authorities
  • Contributing, in its field of competence, to the training policy on research and through research

 

With a staff of 2135, among which 1679 are engineers, 123 own an accreditation to supervise research (HDR : Habilitation à Diriger les Recherches in French)  and 341 are PhD students (2022 figures), ONERA activities are organized according to  12 scientific and technological challenges (see figure below)

The 12 challenges of ONERA’s Scientific Strategic Plan

In order to  perform these missions, ONERA has developped high performance computing tools and fluid flow simulation codes, and also operates low and high enthalpy hypersonic wind tunnels in its Modane, Le Fauga-Mauzac and Meudon centers.

 

CFD : flow around a HIAD (Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator – left) and hypersonic combustion chamber intake flowfield (right)

 

Supersonic/hypersonic wind tunnel R2Ch in Meudon center (left) and high enthalpy hypersonic wind tunnel F4 in Fauga Mauzac center (right)

 

ONERA is involved in many national and european aerospace projects. It is in particular part of Horizon Europe projects EFESTO and EFESTO2 which address new deployable heat shields (HIAD, see preceding picture). These projects are to be concluded with a demonstration flight test (ICARUS project) scheduled in 2028.

ONERA also runs in-house projects, known as PRFs (Federating Research Projects : Projets de Recherche Fédérateurs in french). These projects, which may occasionally involve external organizations, enable ONERA to pool the diverse skills of its scientific departments in the pursuit of a common goal. They are also large-scale projects in terms of project duration (4 to 5 years on average), human resources and associated budgets.

FREHyA is one of these projects. FREHyA aims to improve the understanding and modeling of laminar-turbulent transition and turbulence phenomena in hypersonics (Mach numbers between 5 and 7) through numerical and experimental studies. It is carried out in close collaboration with the CEA and focuses on a shape known as CCF12 (Cone-Cylinder-Flare), which is geometrically simple but allows most of the phenomena encountered in application configurations to be dealt with.

 

CCF12 geometry and numerical schlieren (ONERA)

 

Apart from hypersonic vehicles and atmospheric reentry ONERA is involved in launchers projects, a field which is also within HyFAR-ARA missions (reusable launchers). Recently (2019), ONERA succesfuly performed a demonstration of an airborne mockup (EOLE project in cooperation with CNES).

 

EOLE project (experimental airborne launcher) : CAD view (left) and 2019 flight demonstration (right)

 

Immediately after joining HyFAR-ARA, ONERA has engaged in the next events organized by the association or to which it contributes:

 

The HyFAR-ARA association wishes its new member a warm welcome.