The GHIBLI Plasma Wind Tunnel: description of the new CIRA-PWT facility
- Paper number
IAC-06-C2.6.01
- Author
Mr. Carlo Purpura, CIRA Italian Aerospace Research Centre, Italy
- Year
2006
- Abstract
A new plasma wind tunnel is at present under construction at CIRA in Capue (Italy). Such a plasma facility is named GHIBLI and the operating flow is air, at present, but other gases such as CO2 can be used. It is equipped with an electric arc-heater like the one of the SCIROCCO facility but with a lower power of 2 MW. The Test Chamber of the facility is a cylinder with 2 m in diameter and 2 m length. The nozzle exit diameter is 150 mm, and generating a plasma-jet at Mach 7. It is possible to develop test campaigns on models with diameter up to 100 mm, for a maximum run time of 30 min. Such a new facility allows to perform the thermal characterisation of new materials for spacecraft protection during the re-entry in the planetary atmospheres. A so large model diameter of 100 mm allows the easy installation of sensors along its surface in order to obtain the distribution of the pressure, temperature and the time evolution temperature front inside the material during the development of a test run, by means of the application of thermocouples at different depth inside the material. In fact, the facility is equipped with a data acquisition system (DAS), that allows to acquire signals from a lot of instruments. The test chamber size allows to perform the flow analysis by means of the laser spectroscopy (DLAS). The presence of some optical windows permits the use of the thermograph and pyrometer techniques for the determination of the material emissivity characteristics. In the test leg, the pressure recovery is assured by a cylindrical diffuser with 7 m of length and an inner diameter of 890 mm. A heat exchanger reduces the high plasma temperature at values of the order of 100°C, while a vacuum system assures a mass flow rate of 55 g/s at a suction pressure of 10 mbar. In the paper, a description of the facility operation will be done, and a CFD simulation of its performances is in course of development.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-C2.6.01.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.