Design of a Hypersonic Expansion Tube for Rutgers University*

The design of a high-enthalpy hypervelocity expansion tube facility to be commissioned at Rutgers University. The facility is in the advanced design stage and is being designed to achieve high-enthalpy near-equilibrium flow, an experimental run time of 500 microseconds and Mach numbers of between 6 to11, with a design Mach number of 8, all when using Helium as the driver gas. At the same time, the facility is being designed to maximize safety while reducing the running costs and the percentage of failed runs as much as possible. This includes an integrated helium recovery system capable of recycling the helium from one day of running overnight, as well as a driven gas/expansion section separating diaphragm that can be tested prior to the system being closed and pressurized. The current state of the project and the design of the facility is discussed in this talk, including the basic design concepts, problems encountered and solved, anticipated performance metrics, overall system architecture, envisioned diagnostics capability and expected experiment loop.