TY - JOUR
T1 - The GHIBLI plasma wind tunnel
T2 - Description of the new CIRA-PWT facility
AU - Purpura, Carlo
AU - Filippis, Federico De
AU - Graps, Egidio
AU - Trifoni, Eduardo
AU - Savino, Raffaele
PY - 2007/6
Y1 - 2007/6
N2 - A new plasma wind tunnel is under construction at the Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA) located at Capua. It is named GHIBLI and the plasma is generated by a segmented arc heater whose power is about 2 MW. Such a new facility will be able to perform test campaigns on models up to 80 mm in diameter, and may be used to develop researches in the aerospace field of the hypersonic plasma flows from the reentry technologies to the validation of CFD codes for the theoretical predictions of aerothermodynamic phenomena. Target of the present paper is the presentation of results obtained by means of CFD simulation by using the well-known FLUENT code, Such a code has been used to simulate the aerothermodynamic field inside the conical nozzle of the facility to obtain some analytical correlations (fits) between the main aerodynamic parameters at the nozzle exit, such as the Mach number, flow density, mass flow rate, etc. and the reservoir conditions inside the arc heater column, total pressure and total enthalpy. Such fits allow fast theoretical prediction of the facility operation parameters for given reservoir conditions.
AB - A new plasma wind tunnel is under construction at the Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA) located at Capua. It is named GHIBLI and the plasma is generated by a segmented arc heater whose power is about 2 MW. Such a new facility will be able to perform test campaigns on models up to 80 mm in diameter, and may be used to develop researches in the aerospace field of the hypersonic plasma flows from the reentry technologies to the validation of CFD codes for the theoretical predictions of aerothermodynamic phenomena. Target of the present paper is the presentation of results obtained by means of CFD simulation by using the well-known FLUENT code, Such a code has been used to simulate the aerothermodynamic field inside the conical nozzle of the facility to obtain some analytical correlations (fits) between the main aerodynamic parameters at the nozzle exit, such as the Mach number, flow density, mass flow rate, etc. and the reservoir conditions inside the arc heater column, total pressure and total enthalpy. Such fits allow fast theoretical prediction of the facility operation parameters for given reservoir conditions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34248324443&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.actaastro.2007.01.046
DO - 10.1016/j.actaastro.2007.01.046
M3 - Article
SN - 0094-5765
VL - 61
SP - 331
EP - 340
JO - Acta Astronautica
JF - Acta Astronautica
IS - 1-6
ER -