Development of Quiet-Flow Supersonic Wind Tunnels for Laminar-Turbulent Transition Research

Abstract

This grant supported research into quiet-flow supersonic wind-tunnels, between May 1990 and December 1994. Quiet-flow nozzles operate with laminar nozzle-wall boundary layers, in order to provide low-disturbance flow for studies of laminar- turbulent transition under conditions comparable to flight. Major accomplishments include: (1) the design, fabrication, and performance-evaluation of a new kind of quiet tunnel, a quiet-flow Ludwieg tube; (2) the integration of pre-existing codes for nozzle design, 2D boundary-layer computation, and transition-estimation into a single user-friendly package for quiet-nozzle design; and (3) the design and preliminary evaluation of supersonic nozzles with square cross-section, as an alternative to conventional quiet-flow nozzles. After a brief summary of (1), a description of (2) is presented. Published work describing (3) is then summarized. The report concludes with a description of recent results for the Tollmien-Schlichting and Goertler instability in one of the square nozzles previously analyzed.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2003
Accession Number
ADA640235

Entities

People

  • Steven P. Schneider

Organizations

  • Purdue University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundaries
  • Boundary Layer
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computations
  • Computer Programs
  • Fabrication
  • Layers
  • Mach Number
  • Nozzles
  • Pressure Distribution
  • Supersonic Wind Tunnels
  • Surface Properties
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Two Dimensional
  • User Friendly
  • Wind Tunnel Nozzles
  • Wind Tunnels

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Fluid Dynamics.
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Hypersonics
  • Hypersonics - Hypersonic Boundary Layers
  • Hypersonics - Hypersonic Flow