FLOW VISUALIZATION AND HEAT TRANSFER MEASUREMENT IN A HYPERSONIC WIND TUNNEL

Current state of the art of numerical codes does not allow the aerodynamic and thermal design of hypersonic vehicles, as well as of space shuttles, by means of computer simulations only. The need arises for proper wind tunnel testing and detailed heat flux measurements. In this article significant results referring to flow visualizations and heal transfer measurements performed with an infrared (IR) scanning radiometer in a blow-down hypersonic wind tunnel on simple and double ellipsoidal models art discussed. Comparisons of IR data with oil film flow visualizations, thermocouple measurements and computational predictions are made.