Computational study and error analysis of an integrated sampling-probe and gas-analyzer for mixing measurements in supersonic flow

Abstract

Concentration probes are employed in supersonic flow mixing measurements. Because the typical design of such probes is essentially based on an inviscid, adiabatic, quasi-1D analysis, the scope of this work is to understand better and quantify the severe impact of viscous effects on the probe's internal gasdynamics and the associated uncertainties in the measured quantities via a computational fluid dynamics analysis. Specifically, the focus is on the augmented errors due to the aforementioned viscous effects when coupled with various cases of probe-flow misalignment, which is a typical scenario encountered in mixing measurements of binary gas compositions (air and helium in the present work) in vortex-dominated flows. Results show phenomena such as shock induced boundary layer separation and the formation of an oblique shock train. These flow features are found to noticeably affect the accuracy of the composition measurement. The errors associated with the inviscid, adiabatic, quasi-1D analysis of the probes are quantified in this study.