High-speed experiments enhance hypersonic missile design by predicting sources of turbulence

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – When traveling at five times the speed of sound or faster, the tiniest bit of turbulence is more than a bump in the road, says the Sandia National Laboratories aerospace engineer who for the first time characterized the vibrational effect of the pressure field beneath one of these tiny hypersonic turbulent spots. Sandia National Laboratory reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

2 May 2019 -- “The problem is that these patches of turbulence are really fast and really small,” says researcher Katya Casper. “There are thousands of turbulent spots every second in hypersonic flow, and we need really fast techniques to study their behavior.”

The pressure field is key to understanding how intermittent turbulent spots shake an aircraft flying at Mach 5 or greater, Casper says. Hypersonic vehicles are subjected to high levels of fluctuating pressures and must be engineered to withstand the resulting vibrations.

Simply put, being able to characterize and predict these pressure spots leads to better vehicle design.

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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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