EFFECTS OF GEOMETRIC VARIABLES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A PROBE FOR DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF FREE-STREAM STAGNATION PRESSURE IN SUPERSONIC FLOW

摘要

An investigation was conducted at Mach numbers of 1.41, 1.83, and 2.20 to determine the effects of parametric variations in the height of the pitot-tube center line from the probe surface (achieved by varying the pitot-tube diameter) and in the radius of the surface curvature on the pressure recovery of a probe designed to measure the free-stream stagnation pressure. The probe consists of a pitot tube mounted on the surface of a curved cylinder of circular cross section;the pitot tube senses the pressure of the stream tube which has been slowed by isen-tropic compression along the curved surface. Pressure recovery, greater than or equal to 99.8 percent of the free-stream stagnation pressure, was obtained for a wide range both of angle of attack and of yaw for probes satisfying the optimum design criteria determined in this investigation.