ALBERT

Description: A validation of a measured boundary condition technique was carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of a wall interference assessment/correction (WIAC) system. An experimental evaluation was also carried out to compare performances of various techniques, to define the number of necessary boundary measurements for accurate assessment/corrections and to define the envelope of test conditions for which accurate assessment/corrections are achieved. The relative merits of a WIAC system and an adaptive wall tunnel are compared. The measurement surface boundary data is performed with a system of two rotating pipes. These pipes sweep out a cylindrical measurement surface near the tunnel walls, approximately one inch from the wall at the closest point. The experimental model was specially designed and fabricated for the adaptive wall experiments. The model is a wing/tail/body configuration with swept lifting surface. The boundary data taken in Tunnel 1T with the rotating pipe system has been shown to offer several attractive features for WIAC code evaluation. Good spatial resolution of measurements is achieved and measurements are made upstream and downstream of the model. Also, two velocity components are determined.

Description: An iterative method for wall interference assessment and/or correction is presented for transonic flow conditions in wind tunnels equipped with two component velocity measurements on a single interface. The iterative method does not require modeling of the test article and tunnel wall boundary conditions. Analytical proof for the convergence and stability of the iterative method is shown in the subsonic flow regime. The numerical solutions are given for both 2-D and axisymmetrical cases at transonic speeds with the application of global Mach number correction.

Description: A Wall Signature method originally developed by Hackett has been selected to be adapted for the Ames 12-ft Wind Tunnel WIAC system in the project. This method uses limited measurements of the static pressure at the wall, in conjunction with the solid wall boundary condition, to determine the strength and distribution of singularities representing the test article. The singularities are used in turn for estimating blockage wall interference. The lifting interference will be treated separately by representing in a horseshoe vortex system for the model's lifting effects. The development and implementation of a working prototype will be completed, delivered and documented with a software manual. The WIAC code will be validated by conducting numerically simulated experiments rather than actual wind tunnel experiments. The simulations will be used to generate both free-air and confined wind-tunnel flow fields for each of the test articles over a range of test configurations. Specifically, the pressure signature at the test section wall will be computed for the tunnel case to provide the simulated 'measured' data. These data will serve as the input for the WIAC method--Wall Signature method. The performance of the WIAC method then may be evaluated by comparing the corrected data with those of the free-air simulation.

Description: A Wall Signature method, the Hackett method, has been selected to be adapted for the 12-ft Wind Tunnel wall interference assessment/correction (WIAC) system in the present phase. This method uses limited measurements of the static pressure at the wall, in conjunction with the solid wall boundary condition, to determine the strength and distribution of singularities representing the test article. The singularities are used in turn for estimating wall interferences at the model location. The Wall Signature method will be formulated for application to the unique geometry of the 12-ft Tunnel. The development and implementation of a working prototype will be completed, delivered and documented with a software manual. The WIAC code will be validated by conducting numerically simulated experiments rather than actual wind tunnel experiments. The simulations will be used to generate both free-air and confined wind-tunnel flow fields for each of the test articles over a range of test configurations. Specifically, the pressure signature at the test section wall will be computed for the tunnel case to provide the simulated 'measured' data. These data will serve as the input for the WIAC method-Wall Signature method. The performance of the WIAC method then may be evaluated by comparing the corrected parameters with those for the free-air simulation. Each set of wind tunnel/test article numerical simulations provides data to validate the WIAC method. A numerical wind tunnel test simulation is initiated to validate the WIAC methods developed in the project. In the present reported period, the blockage correction has been developed and implemented for a rectangular tunnel as well as the 12-ft Pressure Tunnel. An improved wall interference assessment and correction method for three-dimensional wind tunnel testing is presented in the appendix.

Description: The AEDC perforated-wall boundary condition has been incorporated into the NASA Ames OVERFLOW code and has been used to calculate the tunnel flow field in the AEDC Aerodynamic Wind Tunnel (16T) over a three-percent model of the Space Shuttle Launch Vehicle. Tunnel flow-field calculations have been performed for two supersonic flow-field conditions, including one near sonic condition. Wall interference assessments and analyses have been performed by making detailed comparisons of the tunnel flow-field calculations with corresponding free-air flow-field calculations and with tunnel data from different scale models. A capability to assess wall interference at low supersonic conditions and to improve data correlations with CFD results by adding the tunnel wall boundary condition is demonstrated.