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Application of Advanced Laser and Optical Diagnostics Towards Non-Thermochemical Equilibrium Systems

The Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) research at Texas
A and M University is concerned with the experimental characterization of non-thermal and
non-chemical equilibrium systems in hypersonic (Mach greater than 5) flowfields using
experimental diagnostics, and is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the
Chemistry and Aerospace Engineering departments. Hypersonic flight conditions often
lead to non-thermochemical equilibrium (NTE) state of air, where the timescale of
reaching a single (equilibrium) Boltzmann temperature is much longer than the timescale
of the flow, meaning that certain molecular modes such as vibrational modes, may be
much more excited than the translational or rotational modes of the molecule leading to
thermal-nonequilibrium. A nontrivial amount of energy is therefore contained within the
vibrational mode, and this energy cascades into the flow as thermal energy, affecting
flow properties through the process of various vibrational-vibrational (V-V) and
vibrational-translational (V-T) energy exchanges between the flow species. The research
is a fundamental experimental study of these NTE systems and involves the application
of advanced laser and optical diagnostics towards hypersonic flowfields. The research is
broken down into two main categories: the application and adaptation of existing laser
and optical techniques towards characterization of NTE, and the development of new
molecular tagging velocimetry techniques which have been demonstrated in an NTE
flowfield, but may be extended towards a variety of flowfields.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-05-675
Date2009 May 1900
CreatorsHsu, Andrea G.
ContributorsNorth, Simon
Source SetsTexas A and M University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeBook, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text
Formatapplication/pdf

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