Development and commissioning of the T6 Stalker Tunnel

Collen, Peter L.; Doherty, Luke J.; Subiah, Suria D.; Sopek, Tamara; Jahn, Ingo; Gildfind, David; Geraets, Rowland Penty; Gollan, Rowan; Hambidge, Christopher; Morgan, Richard G.; McGilvray, Matthew

doi:10.1007/s00348-021-03298-1

Cited by 26 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…It is described in detail by Collen et al. (2021). As such, only a brief overview of the design and operation of the tunnel is given here.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of shock speed variation on radiation and thermochemistry experiments in shock tubes

Collen¹,

Mare²,

Mare³

et al. 2022

J. Fluid Mech.

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Shock tubes are a crucial source of experimental data for the aerothermodynamic modelling of atmospheric entry vehicles. Notably, many chemical-kinetic and radiative models are validated directly against optical measurements from these facilities. Typically, the incident shock speed at the location of the experimental measurement is taken to be representative of the test slug; however, the shock velocity can vary substantially upstream of this location. These variations have been long posited as a source of disagreement with computational predictions, although a definitive link has proved elusive. This work describes a series of experiments which aim to isolate and confirm the importance of the shock deceleration effect. This is achieved by generating different shock trajectories and comparing the post-shock trends in atomic oxygen emission and electron density. These trends are shown to be directly linked to the upstream shock speed variations using a recently developed numerical tool (LASTA). The close agreement of the comparisons confirms the importance of shock speed variation for shock tube experiments; these findings have direct and potentially critical relevance for all such studies, both past and present.

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“…It is described in detail by Collen et al. (2021). As such, only a brief overview of the design and operation of the tunnel is given here.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of shock speed variation on radiation and thermochemistry experiments in shock tubes

Collen¹,

Mare²,

Mare³

et al. 2022

J. Fluid Mech.

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“…The flow is steadiest during phase 3 and, thus, should be used for experiments where temporal uniformity is important. Phase 4 marks the Comparing the above study to similar studies done on free-piston driven reflected shock tunnels (Stalker tunnels) [53,57,60], one sees that the transient behaviours of the reservoir state are characteristically different. This is because the piston face in a piston driven tunnel, which acts like the end wall of a conventional driver, is located very close (≈ 1 m for the HEG condition III in Ref.…”

Section: Determination Of the Reservoir Enthalpymentioning

confidence: 70%

Characterization of reflected shock tunnel air conditions using a simple method

Olivier

Wen

et al. 2022

Physics of Fluids

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A new method to characterize air test conditions in hypersonic impulse facilities is introduced. It is a hybrid experimental-computational rebuilding method which uses the Fay-Riddell correlation with corrections based on thermochemical nonequilibrium computational fluid dynamic results. Its benefits include simplicity and time-resolution, and, using this method, a unique characterization can be made for each individual experimental run. Simplicity is achieved by avoiding the use of any optical techniques and overly expensive numerical computations while still maintaining accuracy. Without making any assumptions to relate the reservoir conditions to the nozzle exit conditions, the work done characterizing four test conditions in a reflected shock tunnel is presented. In this type of facility, shock compression is used to produce an appropriate reservoir which is then expanded through a nozzle to produce hypersonic flow. Particular focus is given to the nozzle exit total enthalpy where a comparison is made with the reservoir enthalpy obtained using the measured shock speed and pressure in the shock tube. Good agreement is observed in all cases providing validation of the new approach. Additionally, static pressure measurements showed clearly that conditions III and IV have a thermochemical state which likely froze shortly after the nozzle throat. Also, the nozzle flow is shown to be almost isentropic. Due to the simplicity of the current method, it can be easily implemented in existing facilities to provide an additional independent estimate alongside existing results.

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“…In the present work, Ice Giant experiments will be run in shock tube mode to provide insight into the non-equilibrium thermochemistry occurring in the shock layer. A more detailed overview of T6 can and experiments run to date can found in [9].…”

Section: Facility Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Figures 7,8,and 9 shows radiance obtained versus wavelength for the 0%, 0.5%, and 5% CH 4 conditions respectively. Two profiles are presented, one corresponding to the peak region (± 1 mm) and one corresponding to the end of the test slug (30 mm behind the peak ±…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Shock Radiation Tests for Ice Giant Entry Probes Including CH4 in the T6 Free-Piston Driven Wind Tunnel

Steer

Collen

Glenn

et al. 2023

AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum

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The Ice Giants, Uranus and Neptune, represent a largely unexplored, interstitial class of planetary objects that fit between the Gas Giants and the smaller terrestrial worlds, such as Earth, in terms of their size and elemental composition and are therefore a missing link in our understanding of extrasolar planetary evolution. The scientific potential of a mission to the Ice Giants is well recognised and has been identified by NASA and ESA as a high priority on several occasions, most recently in the 2023 -2032 Decadal Survey. The payload capacity of such a spacecraft is limited by the requirement for a bulky heat shield, made necessary by the paucity of ground test data for convective and radiative heat flux at proposed entry trajectories. This paper describes an experimental study of shock layer radiation via emission spectroscopy at Ice Giant entry conditions in the T6 free-piston driven wind tunnel. Shock waves of up to 18.9 km s −1 were driven through H/He mixtures containing up to 5% CH 4 by mole. The magnitude of spectral radiance at the peak and in the immediate post-shock region appears to be strongly affected by the concentration of CH 4 in the test gas. Thorough cleaning of the shock tube between each test was found to be very important for obtaining high quality data given the relatively low signal levels.

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Development and commissioning of the T6 Stalker Tunnel

Cited by 26 publications

References 69 publications

The influence of shock speed variation on radiation and thermochemistry experiments in shock tubes

The influence of shock speed variation on radiation and thermochemistry experiments in shock tubes

Characterization of reflected shock tunnel air conditions using a simple method

Shock Radiation Tests for Ice Giant Entry Probes Including CH4 in the T6 Free-Piston Driven Wind Tunnel

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