Transpiration Cooling at Hypersonic Flight - AKTiV on SHEFEXII

Abstract

The present paper presents the in-flight measurement of the transpiration cooling experiment AKTiV flown on the sub-orbital re-entry configuration SHEFEXII. Thermal response of the structure is measured just up- and downstream of a cooled sample with a non-cooled reference set-up on the opposite side of the vehicle. The measurement shows that the heat flux is reduced upon coolant exhaust. The maximum temperature reduction by transpiration-cooling is observed on the porous sample with 87 K, while downstream the sample, the temperature reduction by film cooling is 75 K. This corresponds to cooling effi�ciencies of 61% and 46% on the sample and downstream, respectively. The evaluation is supported by the semi-analytical tool HEATS, based on a transient heat balance at the surface. Comparison of the results with HEATS shows that the heat flux predicted with HEATS is in good concurrence with the measured temperatures on the cooled sample, as well as upstream and downstream with a maximum deviation by 14%. The analysis shows that the flow condition around the sharp-edged, faceted vehicle remains longer laminar than expected.