Pre-Flight Ground Testing of the Full-Scale HIFiRE-1 Vehicle at Fully Duplicated Flight Conditions: Part 2

As part of a two phase experimental study to obtain detailed heating and pressure data over the full-scale HIFiRE (formally FRESH FX-1) flight geometry, CUBRC has completed a matrix of ground tests to determine the optimal flight geometry and instrumentation configuration necessary to make measurements of desired flow phenomena during the flight experiment. The primary objective of the HIFiRE (Hypersonic International Flight Research and Experimentation) flight experiment is to collect high quality flight data from integrated flight instrumentation to be used for CFD code and ground test facility validation in regions of boundary layer transition, turbulent separated flow, and shock-boundary layer interaction. To support this flight experiment, data has been obtained in the LENS I hypervelocity wind tunnel employing a full-scale model over a range of Mach numbers from 6.5 to 7.4, and Reynolds numbers of 0.5E+06 to 5.5E+6 duplicating the reentry trajectory. These points gave researchers the best chance to measure the transition process on the fore cone and have a turbulent separated flow on the cylinder that reattached onto the flare section.