Hypersonic Aerodynamics

Competitive advantage

• Pioneering the use of highly-instrumented, low-inertia, dynamically-scaled, rapidly-prototyped, models with on-board instrumentation for free-flight testing in hypersonic conditions in ground-based test facilities
• Measurement of the aerodynamic derivatives of a design across a range of attitudes in a single experimental run using a unique combination of on-board instrumentation, including miniature inertial measurement units, in tandem with high-speed video tracking. This technique offers the unique ability to quickly validate numerically-derived aerodynamic databases using a small number of wind tunnel experiments
• Ability to investigate high-speed separations including multi-stage separation and stores release and to quantify the associated multi-body aerodynamics

Impact

• Tunnel-based, free-flight testing helps to reduce the requirement and risks associated with expensive flight testing of high-speed vehicle designs and configurations. Tunnel-based free-flight testing allows for assessing the accuracy of numerical designs and identifying unforeseen issues using ground-based test facilities. Changes to geometric design, mass distribution and separation approach can be rapidly asse