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Nitrogen driver for low-enthalpy testing in free-piston-driven shock tunnels

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Abstract

Nitrogen is proposed as a suitable driver gas candidate for the operation of free-piston-driven shock tunnels at low total enthalpies. When compressed adiabatically, nitrogen has a lower speed of sound than the commonly used driver gases, e.g., argon and helium, thus providing the ability to achieve tailored conditions and longer test durations at lower enthalpies. This paper describes the methodology used to design operating conditions using nitrogen as the driver gas and presents an experimental and numerical demonstration of its use to achieve tailored conditions in a free-piston-driven shock tunnel. In this demonstration, the useful test flow duration was extended from less than 0.5 ms to 4 ms based on a constant-nozzle-supply-pressure criterion for tests at total enthalpies of 1.6 MJ/kg. The same design methodology was then used to develop different nitrogen–argon driver conditions for tailored operation in the free-piston-driven shock tunnel T4 for enthalpies spanning from 1.6 to 3.2 MJ/kg. With a nitrogen driver gas, T4, which was originally designed for operation up to Mach 25 flight conditions, can now operate at conditions as low as an equivalent flight Mach number of 5.5. This is significant because the experimental results, supported by numerical simulations, clearly demonstrate that nitrogen can be used as a driver gas in free-piston-driven shock tunnels to maximise the duration at which test conditions are held constant when testing at low total enthalpies.

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Notes

  1. Region 1 denotes the driven gas in its original state, region 4 the driver gas in its original state, and region 5 the state of the driven gas after it has been processed by the reflected shock.

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Acknowledgements

W. Chan gratefully acknowledges the Australian Defence Science & Technology Group for funding his University of Queensland Post-doctoral Fellowship, during which this work was conducted. R. Whitside gratefully acknowledges the support of the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Postgraduate Scholarship–Doctoral.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Hypersonics, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    W. Y. K. Chan, R. W. Whitside, M. K. Smart, D. E. Gildfind, P. A. Jacobs & T. Sopek

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  1. W. Y. K. Chan
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  2. R. W. Whitside
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  3. M. K. Smart
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  4. D. E. Gildfind
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  5. P. A. Jacobs
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Correspondence to W. Y. K. Chan.

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Communicated by K. Hannemann.

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This paper is based on work that was presented at the 32nd International Symposium on Shock Waves, Singapore, July 14–19, 2019.

Appendix: T4 operation conditions for blended nitrogen and argon driver gases

Appendix: T4 operation conditions for blended nitrogen and argon driver gases

A summary of the nitrogen–argon driver conditions for T4 operation at a compression ratio of 60 is shown in Table 2. This also includes the existing pure argon and helium conditions for reference. For a given driver gas mixture and unscored mild steel diaphragm thickness, the reservoir (\(p_{\mathrm{Res}}\)) and compression tube (\(p_{\mathrm{CT}}\)) fill pressures are provided. The nominal burst pressure \(p_{4}\) for each diaphragm thickness is also provided.

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Chan, W.Y.K., Whitside, R.W., Smart, M.K. et al. Nitrogen driver for low-enthalpy testing in free-piston-driven shock tunnels. Shock Waves 31, 541–550 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00193-021-01002-0

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