Post flight analysis of SHEFEX I: Shock tunnel testing and related CFD analysis

Abstract

One important aspect of the SHarp Edge Flight EXperiment (SHEFEX) program of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is the post flight analysis of the data gathered during the flight of SHEFEX-I. One part of the analysis is the experimental simulation of a flight point at an altitude of approximately 20 km in the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel Göttingen (HEG). To conduct these experiments a complex wind tunnel model of the SHEFEX-I configuration has been designed, machined and instrumented by DLR. Every experiment performed in HEG was accompanied by numerical computations applying the DLR Tau code. The resulting database containing data from flight, ground based testing and numerical computations has been created by DLR and allows comparisons between them. The comparison between the numerical and experimental data from flight and ground based testing for surface pressure and surface heat flux is the main focus in this paper.