Hypersonic Wind Tunnel (HWT) Facility
Trisonic Wind Tunnel (TWT) Facility
Laser-Based Flow Diagnostics
User liaison
Robert D. M. Tachau, PhD, PE (rdtacha@sandia.gov )
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800, MS-0834
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-0834
Phone: (505) 845-7157
Fax: (505) 844-9297
Steven J. Beresh (sjberes@sandia.gov)
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800, MS-0834
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-0834
Phone: (505) 844-4618
Fax: (505) 844-4523
The Engineering Sciences Center has the major laboratory responsibility for basic research and development in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, solid mechanics, and micro-mechanics. The Center combines computational modeling and simulation, analysis, and experimentation to solve complex problems of interest to Sandia, DOE, DOD, DHS, other government agencies, and industry.
The Center operates the Engineering Sciences Experimental Facility (ESEF) to provide experimental capabilities and advanced diagnostic methods for understanding the fundamental physics of complex fluid flow, heat transfer, aerodynamic systems, and the behavior of micro-devices. The ESEF is operated by an team of engineers and technologists with emphasis on laser-based flow diagnostics, multiphase flow, aerodynamics, wind tunnel testing, material decomposition, thermodynamics, aerosol mechanics, radiative heat transfer, and the response of micro-devices to a broad spectrum of stimuli and environmental conditions. Experiments are conducted in Building 865 in Tech Area I, which houses numerous thermal/fluids laboratories, laser diagnostic laboratories, two wind tunnels, and a high-altitude chamber. ESEF labs are located in additional facilities across Sandia, including the Micro Lab and in Tech Area III.
High-Speed Wind Tunnel Facilities for Compressible Flow Research
The Engineering Sciences Center is responsible for problems in aerodynamics associated with high-speed flight of missiles, re-entry vehicles, and gravity bombs. In support of this mission, the Center operates two high-speed wind tunnels; the Hypersonic Wind Tunnel (HWT) and the Trisonic Wind Tunnel (TWT), and a low-density, High-Altitude Chamber (HAC).
The Hypersonic Wind Tunnel (HWT) facility is a blowdown-to-vacuum facility which uses high-pressure gas to produce high-speed compressible flow over a model or geometry of interest. The HWT facility is capable of producing Mach 5, 8, or 14 flow past a model using either air or nitrogen as the working fluid. Each test section for Mach 5, 8, and 14 are 18 inches in diameter and have four glass windows placed 90 degrees apart from each other. Model hardware is normally sting-mounted and ranges in size from 6 to 14 inches long and a base diameter of 4 inches or less. Diagnostic capabilities include surface and field flow visualization techniques, average and instantaneous pressure measurements, and six-component balance force and moment data.
The HWT facility has a wide range of operating conditions:
Sandia National Laboratories also operates the Trisonic Wind Tunnel (TWT) facility for subsonic, transonic, and supersonic experiments for a wide variety of vehicles. The TWT facility is traditionally used for force and moment experiments on bomb and reentry vehicle geometries to gain aerodynamic performance data for flight control systems, but is also used for understanding basic physics of compressible, high-speed flows.
The TWT facility is a blowdown-to-atmosphere facility that uses compressed air at high pressure to produce high-speed flow over a model mounted in the 12-inch square test section of the wind tunnel. The facility can produce subsonic and transonic flows in the test section by using a converging nozzle in conjunction with perforated test section walls. Supersonic streams are achieved by using any of the converging-diverging nozzle walls with solid test section walls. Thus, the Mach number range of the wind tunnel is from approximately 0.5 to 3 with a relatively wide range of Reynolds numbers.
The wind tunnel operates with an automatic control system to maintain the set stagnation pressure level, and control movement of the pitch sector (upon which the model is mounted). While roll orientation of models is normally set manually, all other tunnel and data acquisition procedures are done remotely from the wind tunnel control room.
Performance parameters for the TWT facility can be summarized as follows:
The High-Altitude Chamber (HAC) facility is actually part of the vacuum system used for operations of the HWT facility for high-Mach-number flows. The vacuum system utilizes three 27-foot diameter metal spheres for volume, and the HAC testing environment is actually one of the three spheres. The HAC has been used for a wide variety of experiments which require low density, high vacuum conditions to simulate high altitude and exoatmospheric conditions.
High Altitude Chamber (HAC) Facility
Customers for the HAC facility normally bring full-scale system hardware for checkout prior to launch and space deployment. HAC capabilities are as follows:
Experimental Research Laboratories
The ESEF complex also contains several independent laboratories for experiments in the fields of thermodynamics, gas dynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics and the behavior of micro-devices. The research work in these laboratories has three principal objectives: 1) exploratory research to develop physics-based understanding of fundamental mechanics, 2) to provide experimental data complementary to the development and validation of computational models, and 3) develop advanced diagnostic tools and techniques to enhance the fidelity of experimental results. The core technologies addressed by our experienced staff include: