What is it about?
A series of hypersonic boundary layer transition tests were conducted in a ballistic range at AEDC. Transition was observed under quiet flow conditions and compared to CFD simulations. The N factor at transition was determined.
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Why is it important?
Understanding boundary layer behavior is necessary to design thermal protection systems for re-entry vehicles, but this is complicated because boundary layer transition is sensitive to facility flow quality. Ballistic ranges have essentially no freestream turbulence and do not have vitiated air, thus accurately mimicking the real atmosphere. The N factor at transition determined by CFD for the conditions of these experiments can be compared to those determined by other test methods, namely standard wind tunnels, quiet flow wind tunnels, flight test, and provide validation data for simulations. These results significantly advance the knowledge base for hypersonics and can be applied to vehicle design.
Perspectives
This is an important contribution to the literature as ballistic range results provide the ultimate "quiet tunnel" test conditions. This paper shows flow visualization images and CFD for boundary layer transition on a cone at Mach 10.
Dr. Taylor Swanson
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition Experiments in Hypervelocity Ballistic Range G, January 2016, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2016-2118.
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