Experiments on Aerothermal Supersonic Fluid-Structure Interaction

Abstract

Mastering aerothermal fluid-structure interaction (FSI) is crucial for theefficient and reliable design of future (reusable) launch vehicles. However, capa-bilities in this area are still quite limited. To address this issue, a multidisciplinaryexperimental and numerical study of such problems was conducted within SFB TRR40. Our work during the last funding period was focused on studying the effects ofmoderate and high thermal loads. This paper provides an overview of our experi-ments on FSI including structural dynamics and thermal effects for configurationsin two different flow regimes. The first setup was designed to study the combinedeffects of thermal and pressure loads. We investigated a range of conditions includ-ing shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction (SWBLI) with various incident shockangles leading to, in some cases, large flow separation with high amplitude temper-ature dependent panel oscillations. The respective aerothermal loads were studied indetail using a rigid reference panel. The second setup allowed us to study the effectsof severe heating leading to plastic deformation of the structure. We obtained severelocalized heating resulting in partly plastic deformations of more than 12 times thepanel thickness. Furthermore, the effects of repeated load cycles were studied.