We report on the design and characterization of a 152-mm-diam expansion tube capable of accessing a range of high-enthalpy test conditions with Mach numbers up to 7.1. Expansion tubes have the potential to offer a wide range of test flow conditions as gas acceleration is achieved through interaction with an unsteady expansion wave rather than expansion through a fixed-area-ratio nozzle. However, the range of test flow conditions is limited in practice by a number of considerations such as a short test time and large-amplitude flow disturbances. We present a generalized design strategy for small-scale expansion tubes. As a starting point, ideal gasdynamic calculations for optimal facility design to maximize test time at a given Mach number test condition are presented, together with a correction for the expansion-head reflection through a nonsimple region. A compilation of practical limitations that have been identified for expansion tube facilities, such as diaphragm rupture and flow-disturbance minimization, is then used to map out a functional design parameter space. Experimentally, a range of test conditions are verified through pitot pressure measurements and analysis of schlieren images of flow over simple geometries. To date, there has been good agreement between theoretical and experimental results.

This work presents an in-depth discussion on the nonequilibrium dissociation of O2 molecules colliding with O atoms, combining quasi-classical trajectory calculations, master equation, and dimensionality reduction. A rovibrationally resolved database for all of the elementary collisional processes is constructed by including all nine adiabatic electronic states of O3 in the QCT calculations. A detailed analysis of the ab initio data set reveals that for a rovibrational level, the probability of dissociating is mostly dictated by its deficit in internal energy compared to the centrifugal barrier. Because of the assumption of rotational equilibrium, the conventional vibrational-specific calculations fail to characterize such a dependence. Based on this observation, a new physics-based grouping strategy for application to coarse-grained models is proposed. By relying on a hybrid technique made of rovibrationally resolved excitation coupled to coarse-grained dissociation, the new approach is compared to the vibrational-specific model and the direct solution of the rovibrational state-to-state master equation. Simulations are performed in a zero-dimensional isothermal and isochoric chemical reactor for a wide range of temperatures (1500–20,000 K). The study shows that the main contribution to the model inadequacy of vibrational-specific approaches originates from the incapability of characterizing dissociation, rather than the energy transfers. Even when constructed with only twenty groups, the new reduced-order model outperforms the vibrational-specific one in predicting all of the QoIs related to dissociation kinetics. At the highest temperature, the accuracy in the mole fraction is improved by 2000%.

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This paper represents ongoing efforts to study high-enthalpy carbon dioxide flows in anticipation of the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory and future missions. The work is motivated by observed anomalies between experimental and numerical studies in hypervelocity impulse facilities. In this study, experiments are conducted in the hypervelocity expansion tube that, by virtue of its flow acceleration process, exhibits minimal freestream dissociation in comparison with reflected shock tunnels, simplifying comparison with simulations. Shock shapes of the laboratory aeroshell at angles of attack of 0, 11, and 16 deg and spherical geometries are in very good agreement with simulations incorporating detailed thermochemical modeling. Laboratory shock shapes at a 0 deg of attack are also in good agreement with data from the LENS X expansion tunnel facility, confirming results are facility-independent for the same type of flow acceleration. The shock standoff distance is sensitive to the thermochemical state and is used as an experimental measurable for comparison with simulations and two different theoretical models. For low-density small-scale experiments, it is seen that models based upon assumptions of large binary scaling values do not match the experimental and numerical results. In an effort to address surface chemistry issues arising in high-enthalpy groundtest experiments, spherical stagnation point and aeroshell heat transfer distributions are also compared with the simulation. Heat transfer distributions over the aeroshell at the three angles of attack are in reasonable agreement with simulations, and the data fall within the noncatalytic and supercatalytic solutions.

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