Design, Calibration And Testing Of A Force Balance For A Hypersonic Shock Tunnel

Abstract

The forces acting on a flight vehicle are critical for determining its performance. Of particular interest is the hypersonic regime. Force measurements are much more complex in hypersonic flows, where those speeds are simulated in shock tunnels. A force balance for such facilities contains sensitive gages that measure stress waves and ultimately determine the different components of force acting on the model. An external force balance was designed and fabricated for the UTA Hypersonic shock tunnel to measure drag at Mach 10. Static and dynamic calibrations were performed to find the transfer function of the system. Forces were recovered using a deconvolution procedure. To validate the force balance, experiments were conducted on a blunt cone. The measured forces were compared to Newtonian theory.