Design and testing of a subscale supersonic aeropropulsion wind tunnel

A sub-scale blowdown wind tunnel for aeropropulsion experiments was developed at the Aerodynamics Research Center of The University of Texas at Arlington. The tunnel is capable of Mach 1.5 to 4 and has up to 2 s of run time. The size of the test section is 0.15 x 0.15 m. The tunnel components were newly designed and assembled to be incorporated with an existing supersonic nozzle, a storage tube and a high-pressure compressor. A PC-based preprogrammed controller was also developed to overcome the slow response of a valve controller. An ideal valve opening profile for a particular test is developed based on preceding test. After several tests and corrective interpolations, the pressure disturbances in the plenum chamber are typically reduced to 1 percent of the stagnation pressure. A preliminary test was conducted at Mach 2.5 and Reynolds number of 63 x 106/m, with a stagnation pressure of 928 kPa.