Chapter 278 - 213: Hypersonic Vehicle

Chapter 278: Chapter 213: Hypersonic Vehicle

Accompanying the document was a research grant worth several million.

Although this funding couldn’t be deposited directly into Chen Lin’s bank account, it could be used for a wide range of purposes: purchasing plane tickets, covering travel expenses for academic exchanges abroad, paying stipends to future graduate students...

With his current position as a professor, Chen Lin could indeed advise graduate students, but he didn’t have the time to look into it for the moment.

The most direct method would be to pay himself a monthly salary of over ten thousand yuan to "improve" his lifestyle a bit, which would be well within the bounds of reasonable expenses.

But Chen Lin couldn’t be bothered with such things.

He really didn’t care about that small amount of money.

Just at the end of last month, the payout for his "Little Financial Planner" title had brought him another thirty million in income.

However, compared to the money, the other forms of policy support mentioned in the document were the truly significant benefit.

What surprised Chen Lin wasn’t that he had been selected, but that he hadn’t expected the process to be so fast.

He answered the call.

"Hello, Academician Liang."

"Ah, Chen Lin," Liang Tianshi’s aged voice came from the other end of the line. "I’m in your Principal Chang’s office right now. Come over for a bit. There’s something I need to discuss with you in person."

Chen Lin froze for a moment, phone in hand.

’Academician Liang... is here at the university?’

’And he specifically asked to speak with me in person?’

A chill went through Chen Lin. He immediately realized this was no trivial matter.

For a figure of Academician Liang’s stature to personally travel all the way from the Imperial Capital to Jinmen just to see him... the importance of the topic at hand was self-evident.

He hung up, immediately stood, grabbed his phone and keys, and strode out of the Yanhai Company office. He headed straight for the administration building where Principal Chang Kai’s office was located.

Chen Lin practically jogged the whole way, rushing into the administration building in under five minutes.

He didn’t even bother waiting for the elevator, taking the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. Principal Chang Kai’s office was at the end of the hall.

He stood before the office door, took a deep breath to steady his rapid breathing, then raised his hand and knocked.

"Please, come in."

Principal Chang Kai’s voice came from inside.

Chen Lin pushed the door open and entered. The scene inside made him pause for a moment.

Principal Chang Kai was standing by his desk, his face wreathed in smiles, while Academician Liang Tianshi sat serenely on a sofa in the reception area, holding a cup of hot tea and sipping it slowly.

Beside Academician Liang sat an unfamiliar middle-aged man.

The man was around forty, with a medium build and unremarkable features, but his posture was exceptionally upright, his back ramrod straight.

He wore a simple, dark jacket, and his sharp eyes were silently sizing up Chen Lin as he walked in.

At a single glance, Chen Lin could tell this man was completely different from any scholar, official, or businessman he had ever met.

He carried an air of calm and deadly seriousness, the kind that could only be forged through rigorous training.

"Ah, Chen, you’re here! Quick, have a seat, have a seat!" Principal Chang Kai greeted him warmly the moment he saw him.

Liang Tianshi also set down his teacup, a gentle smile gracing his features. "Chen Lin, come, sit over here with me."

Chen Lin nodded and sat in the armchair beside Academician Liang, his gaze sweeping casually over the unfamiliar middle-aged man.

"Let me make an introduction," Liang Tianshi said, gesturing to the man beside him. His tone grew more solemn. "This is Ma Jian, from the National Security Department. He’s here to oversee information security."

’National Security?!’

Chen Lin’s heart leaped, but his expression remained impassive. He simply gave a polite nod. "Director Ma, a pleasure."

’I can’t be sure of his rank,’ he thought, ’but given the circumstances, calling him ’Director’ can’t be wrong.’

Ma Jian’s face was largely expressionless. He gave a slight nod and said in a steady voice, "Chen Lin. Hello."

"Chen Lin," Liang Tianshi said, patting his shoulder and getting straight to the point, "I’ve called you here today because there is an extremely important and urgent matter that requires your help."

He paused, his tone growing more serious. "I know you’re surprised by the speed of your selection for the ’Ten Thousand Talents Program’ for distinguished individuals.

"To be frank, the reason it was fast-tracked—to the point of even skipping the oral defense and public review period—is partly because a national-level project has hit an extremely difficult bottleneck. They urgently need your mathematical skills to break through it."

It all clicked into place for Chen Lin.

’Sure enough,’ he thought, ’there’s always a reason for an anomaly.’

"According to regulations, participating in a classified project of this level requires a certain status and clearance," Liang Tianshi continued to explain. "Your status as a distinguished individual in the ’Ten Thousand Talents Program’ is that prerequisite."

"Mr. Ma Jian is here to provide full technical and security support for the upcoming online video conference."

Chen Lin nodded in understanding.

Just then, Ma Jian glanced at his watch and said in a low voice, "Academician Liang, Principal Chang, Chen Lin. It’s about time. We can proceed to the conference room."

"Yes, yes, of course. We’ll head over right now," Principal Chang Kai replied hastily.

He led the three of them to a small, previously unused room next to his office, which had a plaque that read "Secure Conference Room."

The room was small and sparsely furnished, containing only a conference table, a few chairs, and a large digital display mounted on the wall. The windows were covered with heavy, tightly drawn curtains, ensuring complete physical isolation.

Ma Jian took a nondescript laptop from his briefcase, connected it to the display, and began a series of complex procedures. He muttered under his breath as he typed, rattling off a stream of technical jargon that was completely unintelligible to Chen Lin.

"Physical line encryption... secondary quantum key verification... channel integrity check complete..."

About ten minutes later, Ma Jian finally looked up and said to Academician Liang, "Academician Liang, the equipment and network are confirmed secure. We can now enter the online conference room."

Academician Liang nodded, gesturing for Chen Lin to sit directly in front of the display.

Soon, the screen lit up, displaying a virtual conference room. A dozen or so video windows blinked on one by one, revealing faces that were by turns serious, scholarly, and grave.

Chen Lin glanced at the screen and couldn’t help but draw a sharp, silent breath.

The backgrounds behind these individuals were all cutting-edge laboratories or offices covered in technical drawings.

"Chen Lin, let me introduce everyone," Liang Tianshi’s voice came from beside him. "This project involves a great many institutions and departments. The main participants today are the team from the National University of Defense Technology, led by their chief project engineer, Major General Li Weiguo."

On the screen, an elderly man in a military uniform with a single gold star on his shoulder gave Chen Lin a slight nod.

"There is also the team of Academician He Zhiyuan from the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Mechanics, as well as our colleagues from the Huaxia Aerospace Technology Group’s Tenth Research Institute."

The experts and scholars in the other windows also nodded to Chen Lin in turn.

’What a lineup...’

Chen Lin felt a prickle of numbness spread across his back.

’The National Defense Science and Technology University, the Science Academy, the Aerospace Technology Group... every single one of these is an institution of critical national importance!’

"Considering that you previously mentioned to Elder Xiang that your foundational knowledge in the fields of science and engineering is relatively weak," Academician Liang’s voice continued, "we’ve specially arranged for a doctoral student from the National Defense Science and Technology University team, Zhai Feng, to help ’translate’ the engineering problem into a purely mathematical one for you."

A young man on the screen, wearing glasses and looking to be in his late twenties, gave Chen Lin a crisp salute. "Professor Chen, hello. I’m Zhai Feng."

"Hello," Chen Lin replied quickly.

Once the introductions were complete, the meeting moved on to the main agenda.

The face of the chief project engineer, Major General Li Weiguo, which was normally stern and imposing, was now etched with gravity and anxiety.

He began to speak, his deep voice filling the conference room through the speakers:

"Everyone, I’ll keep this brief. The project we are currently trying to break through is the optimization of ’Thermal Protection Materials for Hypersonic Vehicle Near-Space Reentry.’"

’A hypersonic vehicle!’

Chen Lin’s heart hammered in his chest at the words.

’This was something he had only ever heard about in the news—a true strategic-level weapon, a pillar of national power!’

"Currently, our biggest technical bottleneck lies in a mathematical model." Li Weiguo’s gaze seemed to pierce through the screen and fix on Chen Lin. "Specifically, a coupled model that describes the material’s ablation process under conditions of extreme temperature and pressure."

He paused, gesturing for Dr. Zhai Feng beside him to continue the explanation.

Zhai Feng nodded and immediately began displaying numerous charts and formulas on the shared screen.

"Professor Chen, to put it simply, when the vehicle reenters the atmosphere at speeds exceeding Mach 5, its surface experiences intense friction with the air, generating temperatures of several thousand degrees. Under these conditions, the thermal protection material undergoes complex physical and chemical changes, a process known as ’ablation.’"

"This process involves extremely complex transient heat conduction, Fluid Mechanics, and chemical reaction kinetics. We’ve built a coupled model composed of over thirty partial differential equations to describe this process, but..."

A bitter look crossed Zhai Feng’s face. "We’ve been stuck on this model for three whole months."

"We’ve tried all the mainstream numerical methods, including the finite element method and the finite difference method, but the error margin between our calculated results and the experimental data remains stubbornly above fifteen percent."

"A fifteen percent margin of error," Major General Li Weiguo’s voice boomed again, his tone as heavy as lead. "In other fields, that might be acceptable. But in ours, it spells disaster!"

"It means we can’t accurately predict the material’s ablation rate, which means we can’t design the most optimized, lightweight thermal protection system. And that directly impacts the vehicle’s range, payload, and flight safety!"

The entire conference room fell into a dead silence.

Chen Lin could clearly feel the immense pressure and expectation emanating from the experts on the other side of the screen.

"Professor Chen," Dr. Zhai Feng’s voice sounded again. He switched the screen display, which now showed nothing but a set of exceptionally complex partial differential equations. "I’ve abstracted the core of the issue into this purely mathematical problem. If you would please take a look..."

Chen Lin looked at the equations on the screen: a problem of solving a system of highly non-linear, multi-physics coupled, transient partial differential equations with a moving boundary.

Truth be told, Chen Lin had struggled to follow the preceding concepts and terms from Physics and engineering; he only half-understood them. But the project team had done their preparatory work thoroughly. As long as they abstracted the issue into a mathematical problem for him, Chen Lin was confident.

’For a system of equations at this level,’ he thought, ’trying to brute-force a solution with traditional numerical methods... never mind the immense computational load, the cumulative error would be horrifying. The fact that they managed to get it down to a 15% error was actually a testament to their skill.’

Chen Lin said nothing. He simply and silently pulled out a stack of A4 paper from the stationery Principal Chang Kai had already prepared, and picked up a black gel pen from the table.