Mach 10 to 20 electrothermal wind tunnel feasibility study and demonstration. Volume 1: Executive summary and analytical study

摘要

The objective of the electrothermal wind tunnel (EWT) concept study is to demonstrate, both analytically and experimentally, the feasibility of a high total pressure and enthalpy airbreathing propulsion test facility. The key element of this wind tunnel is a high pressure heater developed by GT-Devices which uses a continuous high power (1009 to 650 MW) arc discharge to heat cryogenic liquid air (or possibly a surrogate fluid) to high temperature and pressure. The vaporized fluid is mixed with cooler fluid to obtain the desired reservoir conditions, then expanded through a nozzle to produce the test conditions (or expanded directly from the arc). The full-scale facility was initially sized to produce Mach 10 to 20 total enthalpies at mass flows up to 17 kg/sec for total test times of 0.5 seconds.