The 51²è¹Ý is home to the longest duration supersonic to hypersonic wind tunnel in Australia, a key tool in national and international research into aerospace vehicles.
The tunnel allows UniSQ researchers to conduct cutting-edge investigations in areas such as hypersonic aerodynamics, free-flight aerodynamics, supersonic combustion, proximal body separation, heat transfer, hypersonic control, and fluid-structure-interaction experiments.
This work is supported through a wide range of state-of-the-art high speed flow visualisation techniques and instrumentation methods. Utilising a range of state-of-the-art measurements, including in-house developed instrumentation, the flow conditions are well characterised, and the models/test objects are measured with high fidelity.
The facility itself, a Ludwieg tube, consists of a 16m long, 130mm honed internal tube, which utilises a free piston compression process to achieve the test conditions.
The facility has nozzles ranging from Mach 2 to Mach 7, enabling a wide range of flight regimes to be investigated. Each nozzle can also be operated with a range of stagnation pressures and temperatures.
This flexibility and precision in hypersonic and supersonic flow testing makes the 51²è¹Ý Wind Tunnel facility the premier facility of its type in Australia.
To learn more, contact the Hypersonics and Rocketry team.
