Numerical and Experimental Characterization of High Enthalpy Flow in an Expansion Tunnel Facility

Abstract

Several tools have been developed to perform rapid simulations of the relevant physics of an expansion tunnel facility in preparation for the operation of the LENS-XX tunnel. These tools have been assembled to provide multiple mechanisms to analyze the performance of the facility. Two algorithms have been employed in this effort to provide nearly instantaneous computations of the freestream state of the test gas – a characteristics based code and a quasi one-dimensional, unsteady code. These two codes have been modified to include thermal and chemical excitation that has been shown to be essential for this type of simulation. In addition, full unsteady Navier-Stokes simulations have been performed to study viscous effects in the facility and two-dimensional behavior to contrast the simplified algorithms. These codes are currently undergoing validation with available data from the facility to anchor the numerical codes and to assess and understand the experimental data.