This study investigates the stress wave force balance technique for the measurement of forces on a fuelled hypersonic flight vehicle in an impulse-type test facility. A three component force balance for the measurement of lift, thrust and pitching moment on a supersonic combustion ramjet engine was designed, built, calibrated and tested. The force balance was designed using finite element analysis and consisted of four stress bars instrumented for the measurement of strain. Relative errors of less than 2% were obtained for the recovered simulated calibration loads, while errors of less than 3% were obtained for lift and thrust components for simulated fuel-on and fuel-off force loading distributions. Tests in a calibration rig showed that the balance was capable of recovering the magnitude of point loads to within 3% and their lines of action to within 1% of the chord of the model. Additional errors result when testing in a wind tunnel. The uncertainties for the experiments with fuel injection are estimated at 9%, 7% and 9% for the coefficients of lift, thrust and pitching moment. The scramjet vehicle was 0.566m long and weighed approximately 6kg. It consisted of an inlet, combustion chamber and thrust surface. Fuel could be injected through a series of injectors located on the scramjet inlet. The scramjet model was set at zero angle of attack. Experiments were performed in the T4 Free Piston Shock Tunnel at a total enthalpy of 3.3MJ/kg, a nozzle supply pressure of 32MPa and a Mach number of 6.6, with equivalence ratios up to 1.4. Fuel-off force coefficients were measured to within 2% of theoretical values based on predictions using CFD and hypersonic theory. The fuel-off centre-of-pressure was measured to within 4% of the predicted value. The force coefficients varied linearly with equivalence ratio. Good comparison of the measured lift and thrust forces with theoretical values was obtained with increasing flow rates of fuel. The lift-to-drag ratio increased from 3.0 at the fuel-off condition to 17.2 at an equivalence ratio of 1.0. Poor agreement between the measured pitching moment and theoretical values was obtained due to difficulties in predicting the pressure distribution with heat addition on the latter parts of the thrust surface. A shift in the centre-of-pressure of approximately 10% of model chord was measured as the equivalence ratio varied from 0.0 to 1.0. For the design tested, the thrust produced was not enough to overcome drag on the vehicle, even at the highest equivalence ratio tested. Tests at higher stagnation enthalpies (up to 4.9MJ/kg) showed the lift and pitching moment coefficients remained constant with an equivalence ratio of 0.8 but the thrust coefficient decreased exponentially with increasing stagnation enthalpies. Good agreement of experimental values of lift and thrust force with predicted values was obtained for equivalence ratios of 0.0 and 0.8. Choking occurred at stagnation enthalpies of less than 3.0MJ/kg and a nozzle supply pressure of 32MPa with fuel injection at an equivalence ratio of approximately 0.8, resulting in a drag force of approximately 2.5 times the fuel-off drag force. Tests at a nozzle supply enthalpy of 3.3MJ/kg and nozzle supply pressures of 32, 26 and 16MPa were performed at equivalence ratios of 0.0 and 0.8. The fuel-off lift coefficient remained constant but the thrust coefficient increased. This is attributed to a reduction in skin friction associated with longer lengths of laminar boundary layers as the Reynolds number was decreased. The measured fuel-off lift and thrust coefficients agreed with the predicted values to within the known test flow and force prediction uncertainties. Combustion did not occur at a nozzle supply pressure of 16MPa. This work has demonstrated that overall scramjet vehicle performance measurements (such as lift-to-drag ratio and shifts in centre-of-pressure) can be made in a free piston shock tunnel.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/290213 |
| Creators | Robinson, Matthew |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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