Hypersonic Wind Tunnel Testing with Simulation of Local Hot Wall Boundary Layer and Radiation Cooling

Kurzfassung

The development of One-Stage or Two-Stage to Orbit Vehicles asks for ground tests under radiation adiabatic wall conditions to simulate non-isothermal wall effects on the boundary layer transition location and its resulting influence on the local wall temperature rise. This paper discusses how to approach the similarity in hypersonic wind tunnels as far as possible. It presents a method to duplicate Mach number, Reynolds number, Stanton number and - at least locally - the radiation adiabatic wall temperature. Therefore, the amount of heat which moves transversely to the local boundary layer and which is radiated away, is simulated as well. Wind tunnel tests under this hot wall condition may not only improve the basic knowledge of the aerothermal phenomena controlling boundary layer transition but also will be necessary to validate new numerical design codes.