Aerodynamic Heating Measurements on Nose and Elevon of Hypersonic Flight Experiment Vehicle

Aerodynamic heating on the nose and the elevon of the hypersonic flight experiment vehicle was measured using a newly developed sensor, which was calibrated at the heating level corresponding to the level at the real flight condition by a lamp heating test. The calibration test result shows that the sensor could be applicable to the present flight environment. The results of the aerodynamic heating measurements on the nose and the elevon of the vehicle were compared with predictions based on cold hypersonic wind-tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations. The flight-test results on the stagnation region at around t-100 s were lower than the predictions based on the wind-tunnel tests. The comparisons with CFD results assuming either a fully catalytic wall or noncatalytic wall indicate that the discrepancy could be due to the real gas effect and might be explained qualitatively. For the measurements on the elevon, an increase in aerodynamic heating caused by boundary-layer transition was observed just before it was observed on the windward fuselage. Material: carbon-carbon composites.