Facilities

Investigation of hypersonic propulsion systems utilizing advanced laser and optical diagnostics in the Arc Heated Combustion Tunnel (ACT-II) to study high enthalpy reactive flows and shockwave dynamics.

The gas dynamics laboratory (GDL) is a state-of-the-art facility with the infrastructure and wind tunnels used for the experimental study of complex problems in compressible fluid dynamics relevant to hypersonic flows. These include studies on compressible shear layers, fluid/structure/material interactions, base flows, plasma/flow interactions, cavities, cross-flow injection, and free jets to name a few. 

Laser and optical based diagnostics are used to measure quantities of interest in a variety of challenging flow environments. This lab focuses on measurements in supersonic flowfields, electrically and optically produced plasmas, and combustion environments – typically in coupled applications. These flow environments require numerous techniques to measure properties of interest for, in most cases, numerical model development or validation.

Plasmatron 0 is an atomic oxygen plasma chamber used for investigating the oxidation of carbon based materials for heat shield and scramjet design. The samples are loaded in the vacuum chamber and are resistively heated to temperatures up to 2000°C.