Experimental Simulation and Diagnostics of High-Enthalpy Real-Gas Flows
Abstract
The very high flow speeds (up to 8km/s) of transport to and from space through the earth's atmosphere are necessarily associated with very high temperatures (up to 10,000 K) in ground testing and research facilities. Such facilities therefore have to operate only for very short test times. Various techniques have been devised for generating a test flow of sufficient speed and density to simulate the thermal and kinetic processes of high-temperature gasdynamics correctly. Of these, the shock tunnel and the expansion tube principle are the most successful, and in both cases the high enthalpy regime requires the driver gas to be heated transiently to high temperatures (up to 4, 000 K). This can most conveniently be achieved by a piston compression. Many new and only partially understood effects occur in the flows associated with the NASP. Dissociative non-equilibrium effects in the external flow, mixing and combustion processes in supersonic combustion ramjet engines and boundary layers in real-gas flows pose new problems that can presently not be solved by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques. Key experimental data are needed to test and supply parameters for CFD methods.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA241286
Entities
Organizations
- California Institute of Technology