Measurements of Freestream Fluctuations in the NASA Langley 20-Inch Mach 6 Tunnel

An experimental campaign was conducted to measure and to characterize the freestream disturbance levels in the NASA Langley Research Center 20-Inch Mach 6 Wind Tunnel. A pitot rake was instrumented with fast pressure transducers, hot wires, and an atomic layer thermopile to quantify the fluctuation levels of pressure, mass flux, and heat flux, respectively. In conjunction with these probe-based measurements, focused laser differential interferometry was used to optically measure density fluctuations. Measurements were made at five nominal different unit Reynolds numbers ranging from 3.28–26.5×10/m. The rake was positioned at two different streamwise locations and several different roll angles to measure flow uniformity within the test section. In general, noise levels were spatially consistent within the tested region. Pitot pressure fluctuation levels ranged from 0.84% at the highest Reynolds number tested to 1.89% at the lowest Reynolds number tested. Freestream mass-flux fluctuations remained relatively constant between 1.8–2.5% of the freestream. The pressure transducers were also used to determine the dominant disturbance speed and angle of propagation. The disturbances were estimated to travel at approximately 54–81% of the freestream speed at an angle of approximately 21–44° from the freestream direction, but these measurements had a significant amount of uncertainty. A comparison to previous measurements of pressure made in 2012 and of mass flux made in 1994 show almost no change in the RMS fluctuation of these flow quantities.