Experimental Measurement of Aerodynamic Heating About Complex Shapes at Supersonic Mach Numbers

摘要

Fifty years ago, faced with the need for design data to support flight objectives and a dearth of available test facilities in which to acquire those data, the NASA Langley Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel was modified to allow the acquisition of heat transfer data at supersonic Mach numbers. Using the measurement technology of that day, a significant body of data was acquired that has served the industry for the past half-century. More recently, that published heat transfer technology has been revisited using more modern measurement technology. This paper discusses the measurement techniques used, the spectrum of configurations tested, examples of the data acquired, the uniqueness of the program just completed, and a comparison of current information with the technology acquired 50 years ago. Highlighted in this process will be the uniqueness of the data acquired, which is of critical importance in the accurate evaluation of heating parameters that can be confidently and accurately applied with state-of-the-art computational techniques. Major findings from the data acquired in this work include the importance of understanding recovery temperature distributions to fully acquire extrapolatable supersonic data; the complex structure of recovery temperature distributions ahead of, on, and about complex shapes; and the sensitivity of recovery temperature fields to the details of the flow involved.