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Brief Review on the Supersonic Wind Tunnel

Eldwin Djajadiwinata
1*

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, King Saud University,
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.


ABSTRACT
This paper presents a review on the supersonic wind tunnel. The review started with an
introduction on the wind tunnel in general. Afterwards, history of the supersonic wind tunnel is
presented, followed by the description of the common available types. Next, the working principle
of supersonic wind tunnel is explained and, in the end, the method of characteristics is briefly
explained.

Keyword: Supersonic, Wind Tunnel, Method of Characteristics
*Corresponding author: Eldwin Djajadiwinata; email: eldwin_dj@yahoo.com
Telp: +966-530823159
Student ID: 434107763
1. INTRODUCTION

A wind tunnel is a device designed to generate air that flows inside a tunnel within
which a various models (such as aircraft, automobiles, rockets, etc.) are tested for their
characteristics under a certain flow condition. This device is actually used to predict the
characteristics/behavior of the models when they are moving in the air which is not the case
in wind tunnel (the air is moving while the models are static). However, for practical reason,
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instead of letting the models to move through air, the wind tunnel test is done by letting the
air flow past the stationary models. In the early days of aeronautics, both approaches, i.e.,
where the models are moving through air and vice versa, had been attempted [1].
Based on the air velocity that wind tunnel can produce, it can be divided into two
categories. The first is subsonic wind tunnel where the maximum air velocity produced is M
< 1 (less than the speed of sound in air) and the second is supersonic wind tunnel where the
maximum air velocity is equal or greater than the speed of sound in air (M > 1).
Figure 1 shows a scheme of one of the types of subsonic (the air speed is lower than
the speed of sound) wind tunnel. Supersonic wind tunnel test section can be seen
in Figure 2 [2].



Figure 1: Scheme of a type of subsonic wind tunnel [2].


2. HISTORY OF SUPERSONIC WIND TUNNEL

Wind tunnel actually has been built long time ago, even 30 years before the Wright
brothers had their success in their famous flight tests [3]. Frank H. Wenham (1824-1908), a
Council Member of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, is generally credited with
designing and operating the first wind tunnel in 1871 [4]. Table 1 [5] shows list of wind
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tunnels built starting from the Wright Bros era. It can be seen in the table that most of the
wind tunnel were built in Europe during the early stage of aeronautics, and, therefore, it was
in Europe that many of the technical foundations for modern wind tunnels were laid.


Figure 2: Picture of supersonic wind tunnel test section [6].

The first high speed wind tunnel (HST) was first manufactured by the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1932. The design of such wind tunnel
actually had started in 1927 [7] as they had envisioned the importance of such device.
However, the HST built had not reached Mach number greater than one yet.
Langley aerodynamic engineers had been operating their tiny 9-inch experimental
supersonic tunnel since 1942. Three years later, In February 1945, NACA began designing its
first large supersonic wind tunnel at Langley. However, it was still not operational until May
20, 1948 [8].

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3. SUPERSONIC WIND TUNNEL TYPES

There are three main types of supersonic wind tunnel based on how they produce and
handle the air flow. Those are: (1) Continuous wind tunnel; (2) Blowdown wind tunnel; and
(3) Indraft wind tunnel.
Continuous wind tunnel (Figure 3) is a wind tunnel which circulates the air inside a
closed loop. Thus, the air that has passed through the test section is not discharged the
atmosphere. Instead, it is returned back, through certain mechanisms, to the test section.

Table 1: List of wind tunnels built starting from the Wright Bros. era [5].


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Figure 3: Continuous (recirculating) wind tunnel [9].

Blowdown wind tunnel (Figure 4) is a wind tunnel that generates the air flow
through pressure difference between an upstream pressurized tank and the atmosphere or
another vacuum tank at the downstream. As mentioned before, one of its types is the one that
discharges the air, after passing through the test section, to the atmosphere. Another type of
blowdown wind tunnel is the one that has pressure chambers connected to the upstream and
downstream of the chamber. In this configuration, the upstream chamber has much higher air
pressure than that of the downstream chamber.

Figure 4: Scheme of blowdown wind tunnel [10]
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Indraft wind tunnel is a wind tunnel that uses the difference between a low pressure
tank at the downstream and the atmosphere at the upstream to create a flow (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: Scheme of indraft wind tunnel

4. SUPERSONIC WIND TUNNEL WORKING PRINCIPLES

The heart of supersonic wind tunnel is the converging-diverging nozzle. Therefore,
first of all, the concept of this device will be addressed in this report. Converging-diverging
nozzle consists of converging tunnel, throat, and diverging tunnel. After imposing the driving
force (e.g., turning on the vacuum pump, opening the vacuum tank valve or high pressure
tank valve, etc.), the air starts to flow from stagnant condition on the upstream of the
converging nozzle into the nozzle. The flow will accelerate during its flow through the
converging tunnel approaching the throat. This is because at this state the flow is still
subsonic. Therefore the converging tunnel acts as nozzle, i.e., it increases air velocity and
decreases the pressure with respect to decreasing cross sectional area.
As it is approaching the throat, the air local Mach number, M, is getting close to one
and will reach exactly Mach number equal to one at the throat. On the throat, the flow will be
choked at M = 1 and then accelerates (M > 1) in the diverging tunnel. However, in order to
get the desired Mach number accurately and isentropically in the test section, the pressure
ratio (ratio between back pressure and the inlet stagnation pressure) must be adjusted
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properly to match the design condition. Otherwise, undesired normal shock will be created
somewhere inside the tunnel or within the test section and, therefore, the flow cannot be
approximated as isentropic process anymore and the measurement on the test section will not
be valid.

5. THE METHOD OF CHARACTERISTICS

Characteristics are lines in a supersonic flow oriented in specific directions along
which disturbances (pressure waves) are propagated. The Method of Characteristics (MOC)
is a numerical procedure appropriate for solving, among other things, two-dimensional
compressible flow problems. By using this technique, flow properties such as direction and
velocity, can be calculated at distinct points throughout a flow field. The method of
characteristics, implemented in computer algorithms, is an important element of supersonic
computational fluid dynamics software. These calculations can be executed manually, with
the aid of spreadsheet programming or technical computing software (e.g. Matlab or
Mathematica) [11].
Furthermore, method of characteristics provides a technique for properly designing
the contour of a supersonic nozzle for shockfree, isentropic flow, taking into account
multidimensional flow inside the duct. Moreover, the method of characteristics is only
applicable to inviscid flows and practically in inviscid supersonic flows [12].






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REFERENCES

[1] Baals, D. D., and Corliss, W. R., 1981, Wind Tunnels of Nasa,
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-440/ch1-2.htm, Last accessed January 14,
2014
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsonic_and_transonic_wind_tunnel, last accessed January
15, 2014

[3] Baals, D. D., and Corliss, W. R., 1981, Wind Tunnels of Nasa,
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-440/ch1-1.htm, Last accessed January 14,
2014
[4] Baals, D. D., and Corliss, W. R., 1981, Wind Tunnels of Nasa,
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-440/ch1-3.htm, Last accessed January 14,
2014
[5] Baals, D. D., and Corliss, W. R., 1981, Wind Tunnels of Nasa,
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2014
[6] http://www.coe.montana.edu/me/faculty/george/The%20SWT%20story_rev01.htm, last
accessed January 15, 2014

[7] Baals, D. D., and Corliss, W. R., 1981, Wind Tunnels of Nasa,
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-440/ch3-4.htm, Last accessed January 15,
2014
[8] Baals, D. D., and Corliss, W. R., 1981, Wind Tunnels of Nasa,
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-440/ch5-3.htm, Last accessed January 15,
2014
[9] http://www.thermopedia.com/content/1263/, last accessed January 15, 2014

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[10] https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/tunblow.html, last accessed January 15,
2014

[11] Moore, P., 2009, Design of a Supersonic Wind Tunnel, Aerospace Engineering,
WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, p.18

[12] John D. Anderson, J., 1990, Modern Compressible Flow with Historical Perspective,
McGRAW-HILL INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS, p.309, 317, and 325