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Qualification of oil-based tracer particles for heated Ludwieg tubes

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Abstract

The generation, insertion, pressurization and use of oil-based tracer particles is qualified for the application in heated flow facilities, typically hypersonic facilities such as Ludwieg tubes. The operative challenges are to ensure a sub-critical amount of seeding material in the heated part, to qualify the methods that are used to generate the seeding, pressurize it to storage tube pressure, as well as to test specific oil types. The mass of the seeding material is held below the lower explosion limit such that operation is safe. The basis for the tracers is qualified in off-situ particle size measurements. In the main part different methods and operational procedures are tested with respect to their ability to generate a suitable amount of seeding in the test section. For the best method the relaxation time of the tracers is qualified by the oblique shock wave test. The results show that the use of a special temperature resistant lubricant oil “Plantfluid” is feasible under the conditions of a Mach-6 Ludwieg tube with heated storage tube. The method gives high-quality tracers with high seeding densities. Although the experimental results of the oblique shock wave test differ from theoretical predictions of relaxation time, still the relaxation time of 3.2 μs under the more dense tunnel conditions with 18 bar storage tube pressure is low enough to allow the use of the seeding for meaningful particle image velocimetry studies.

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Notes

  1. http://www.topas-gmbh.de/dateien/prospekt/210prspe.pdf (accessed 17.07.2013).

  2. http://www.tsi.com/fast-mobility-particle-sizer-spectrometer-3091/ (accessed 17.07.2013).

  3. http://addinol.de/oilfinder/oil_details.php?id=786 (accessed 17.07.2013).

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Acknowledgments

The work has received funding by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) within the framework “Sonderforschungsbereich Transregio 40, SFB-TR 40” (Technological foundations for the design of thermally and mechanically highly loaded components of future space transportation systems). The authors like to acknowledge H. Rochlitz for contributing to the measurements in the HLB, D.-H. Frobese and E. Brandes (Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt, PTB) for fruitful discussion regarding the estimation of the safety measures and explosion limits and I. Kirsch and E Uhde (Fraunhofer Wilhelm-Klauditz-Institut, WKI) for providing the equipment and contributing to the measurements of particle size distribution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Strömungsmechanik, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Hermann-Blenk-Str. 37, Braunschweig, Germany

    Marcus Casper, Sören Stephan, Peter Scholz & Rolf Radespiel

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  1. Marcus Casper
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  2. Sören Stephan
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  3. Peter Scholz
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  4. Rolf Radespiel
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Correspondence to Peter Scholz.

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Casper, M., Stephan, S., Scholz, P. et al. Qualification of oil-based tracer particles for heated Ludwieg tubes. Exp Fluids 55, 1753 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-014-1753-1

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