Hypersonic Global Heat-Transfer Measurements During Continuous Pitch Sweeps at AEDC Tunnel 9

The AEDC Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel No. 9 is a ground-test facility that features a unique combination of flow conditions, run times, and physical size not reproduced anywhere else in the world. By taking advantage of its large size and long run times, typical Tunnel 9 test programs are designed to collect data over a continuous angle-of-attack sweep using a wind tunnel model instrumented with a force-and-moment balance and hundreds of discrete surface pressure and heat-transfer sensors. Recently AEDC Tunnel 9 has implemented a global heat-transfer measurement system that can operate simultaneously with traditional measurement techniques during a continuous pitch sweep without significant increases in the test program’s schedule or cost. The resulting global heattransfer maps offer considerable insight into the aerothermal environment experienced by the test article. For instance, measurements of complex flow phenomena such as boundarylayer transition and shock wave boundary-layer interactions can now be mapped in detail. The data presented in this paper illustrate the advantage of global mapping for a wedge in a Mach 10 flow field at various angles of attack and Reynolds number conditions. Comparisons with data from discrete instrumentation show excellent agreement with the global measurements. The global heat-transfer measurement system developed for use in Tunnel 9 makes use of several unique innovations in illumination and camera technologies and utilizes a novel two-color temperature-sensitive paint (TSP) formulation.