Preheated Piston-Driven Ludwieg Tube for the Realistic Simulation of Hypersonic Flows
Abstract
The development of high-speed weapon systems is of high current interest to the Navy and the Department of Defense in general. The decreased time-to-target and high survivability of hypervelocity munitions provide enhanced mission effectiveness against present and envisioned threats. There are many challenges associated with hypersonic flight, however, quite apart from the open question of efficient high-speed propulsion: efficient management of high heating loads, laminar-turbulent boundary-layer transition on complex surface geometries, and fluid structure coupling and reduced control-surface effectiveness caused by shock-wave/ boundary layer interactions are all areas that are directly relevant but poorly understood. Computational fluid dynamics simulations provide an increasingly powerful tool for understanding complex flows, but still require high-quality experimental data for validation. Such data can only come from facilities that reproduce important flow parameters such as Mach number, Reynolds number and flow enthalpy. Such reproduction is difficult, however, and presently available facilities capable of flight-enthalpy hypersonic flows are hampered by either mediocre flow quality or short test times. The present proposal seeks to develop a new facility capable of accurately simulating hypersonic flows at flight-realistic conditions, with an extended test time and high-quality flow. The concept uses a preheated Ludwieg tube that is further heated by a piston stage, providing stagnation temperatures and pressures of up to 1800 K and 60 bar (equivalent to Mach 6.5 flight at 26 km altitude) with no contaminants in the test flow. The funding requested covers two key components of the facility, namely the heated Ludwieg tube and fast-acting valve assembly, together with support infrastructure comprising high-pressure components (compressor and storage tanks) and a vacuum pump, as well as a high-speed data acquisition system. Funding of this proposal will help establish a unique research capability and an important tool for educating students and providing future DoD workforce in a crucial technical area.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141512877
Entities
People
- Stuart Laurence
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Maryland