Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Blunt Body Configuration in T5 and HEG

Abstract

This paper deals with the experimental and numerical analysis of a blunt cone wind tunnel model which is a scaled down version of a flight model referred to as ELECTRE. The model length is 333 mm, 1/6 of the flight model. The experiments were performed in the T5 and in the HEG, which are both free piston driven shock tunels operating in the reflected mode. Four test conditions, four reservoirenthalpies and four reservoir pressures were selected based on calibration shots used for the HEG; for the T5, six test conditions consisting of two reservoir enthalpies, two reservoir pressure and three nozzle throat diameters. A comparison is included using a non equilibrium Navier Stokes code. The trends observed in the experimental results seems to agree quite well with results of the numerical simulations which were performed with catalytic and noncatalytic conditions. Better knowledge of free stream conditions is however necessary to improve agreement; in particular the inclusion of the non-uniform free stream density is essential to accurately reproduce the experimental data.