Browsing by Subject "hot-wire anemometry"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Boundary-Layer Stability and Transition on a Flared Cone in a Mach 6 Quiet Wind Tunnel(2013-05-15) Hofferth, Jerrod WilliamA key remaining challenge in the design of hypersonic vehicles is the incomplete understanding of the process of boundary-layer transition. Turbulent heating rates are substantially higher than those for a laminar boundary layer, and large uncertainties in transition prediction therefore demand conservative, inefficient designs for thermal protection systems. It is only through close collaboration between theory, experiment, and computation that the state of the art can be advanced, but experiments relevant to flight require ground-test facilities with very low disturbance levels. To enable this work, a unique Mach 6 low-disturbance wind tunnel, previously of NASA Langley Research Center, is established within a new pressure-vacuum blow-down infrastructure at Texas A&M. A 40-second run time at constant conditions enables detailed measurements for comparison with computation. The freestream environment is extensively characterized, with a large region of low-disturbance flow found to be reliably present for unit Reynolds numbers Re < 11?10^6 m-1. Experiments are performed on a 5? half-angle flared cone model at Re = 10?10^6 m-1 and zero angle of attack. For the study of the second-mode instability, well-resolved boundary-layer profiles of mean and fluctuating mass flux are acquired at several axial locations using hot-wire probes with a bandwidth of 330 kHz. The second mode instability is observed to undergo significant growth between 250 and 310 kHz. Mode shapes of the disturbance agree well with those predicted from linear parabolized stability equation (LPSE) computations. A 17% (40 kHz) disagreement is observed in the frequency for most-amplified growth between experiment and LPSE. Possible sources of the disagreement are discussed, and the effect of small misalignments of the model is quantified experimentally. A focused schlieren deflectometer with high bandwidth (1 MHz) and high signal-to-noise ratio is employed to complement the hot-wire work. The second-mode fundamental at 250 kHz is observed, as well as additional harmonic content not discernible in the hot-wire measurements at two and three times the fundamental. A bispectral analysis shows that after sufficient amplification of the second mode, several nonlinear mechanisms become significant, including ones involving the third harmonic, which have not hitherto been reported in the literature.Item Simultaneous and instantaneous measurement of velocity and density in rayleigh-taylor mixing layers(2009-05-15) Kraft, Wayne NealThere are two coupled primary objectives for this study of buoyancy-driven turbulence. The first objective is to create a new diagnostic for collection of measurements to capture the physics of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) mixing. The second objective is to use the new diagnostic to specifically elucidate the physics of large Atwood number, ( )( )2 1 2 1 / ? ? ? ? + ? = t A , RT mixing. Both of these objectives have been satisfied through the development of a new hot-wire diagnostic to study buoyancy-driven turbulence in a statistically steady gas channel of helium and air ( 6 . 0 03 . 0 ? ? t A ). The capability of the diagnostic to simultaneously and instantaneously measure turbulent velocity and density fluctuations allows for a unique investigation into the dynamics of Rayleigh-Taylor mixing layers at large At, through measurements of turbulence and mixing statistics. The new hot-wire diagnostic uses temperature as a fluid marker for helium and air, which is possible due to the Lewis number ~ 1 (Le = ratio of thermal diffusivity to mass diffusivity) for helium and air, and the new diagnostic has been validated in an At = 0.03 mixing layer. The energy density spectrum of v? ? ? , measured experimentally for the first time in RT mixing, is found to closely follow the energy distribution of v? , up to the Reynolds numbers investigated ( ( ) mix t h gA h ? 6 2 Re 2 / 3 = ~ 1450). Large At experiments, with At = 0.6, have also been achieved for the first time in a miscible RT mixing layer. An asymmetric penetration of the bubbles (rising fluid) and spikes (falling fluid) has been observed, resulting in measured self similar growth parameters ?b = 0.060 and ?s = 0.088 for the bubbles and spikes, respectively. The first experimental measurements of turbulent velocity and density fluctuations for the large At case, show a strong similarity to lower At behaviors when normalized. However conditional statistics, which separate the bubble (light fluid) and spike (heavy fluid) dynamics, has highlighted differences in v? ? ? and rms v? in the bubbles and spikes. Larger values of v? ? ? and rms v? were found in the downward falling spikes, which is consistent with the larger growth rates and momentum of the spikes compared to the bubbles. These conditional statistics are a first in RT driven turbulence.