Hypersonic ludwieg tube

Abstract

The aerothermal design of vehicles operating at hypersonic speeds calls for a good knowledge of aerodynamic and thermal loads on the vehicle components. While significant progress has been achieved in the development of accurate and efficient numerical flow simulation methods there still exist a number of hypersonic flow phenomena where flow experiments are needed to achieve acceptable uncertainty levels in vehicle design. Among these are laminar-turbulent transition of boundary layers and shock-boundary layer interactions. Hypersonic flow research over several decades has resulted in significant theories and a large amount of measured data on these subjects. Nevertheless, the flow physics is extremely complex, and numerical flow simulations cannot resolve the complete range of temporal and spatial flow scales involved. Hence there is the need for fundamental flow experiments in these fields.