Studies of wall temperature effects on shock- wave/boundary layer interactions in hypersonic flow

Infrared thermography equipment is used to measure the temperature rise at a surface of a model simulating a deflected flap of a re-entry vehicle. The model is tested in the VKI-H3 hypersonic wind tunnel with a flow at Mach 6 at different Reynolds numbers and temperatures. Examining the rise of temperature on the interested surface, it is possible to visualize the flow topology on the surface and to infer the heat flux on the model. By heating artificially the model before the tests it is possible to evaluate the effects of the wall temperature on heat flux and flow topology. Nomenclature Cp: specific heat for air at constant pressure [J kg-1 K-1] k: thermal conductivity [W m-1 K-1] h: convective heat transfer coefficient [W m-2 K-1] H: total enthalpy [J kg-1