Measurement of Water Vapor Levels for Investigating Vitiation Effects on Scramjet Performance

摘要

Combustion heated wind-tunnel facilities are required for many different aspects of ground-based testing of hypersonic airbreathing propulsion systems. This is particularly true for large-scale scramjet testing in facilities with run times on the order of tens of seconds to minutes at equivalent flight Mach numbers above 4. Unfortunately, hydrogen and hydrocarbon combustion-heated facilities both result in water vapor levels in the test flow that are significantly greater than for atmospheric air. Hydrocarbon heated facilities additionally introduce carbon dioxide into the test flow.