Characterization of Collisional Energy Transfer in Flow Diagnostic Methods
Abstract
The characterization of hypersonic flow fields requires an understanding of both chemical reactions and nonequilibrium effects. While current computation models can predict behaviors for laminar and turbulent transitions in these types of flows, experimental data is still needed to further validate these models. Specifically, the simultaneous measurement of velocimetry and thermometry can provide comparisons to the values of turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent heat flux of these models.
In this work, measurements of collisional energy transfer are reported for the temperature dependent collisional quenching of NO (A, ²Σ⁺) by benzene and hexafluorobenzene. Transitions between laminar and turbulent flow behaviors could potentially be instigated with thermal nonequilibrium in these flows. This work briefly reports on laser-induced nonequilibrium measurements which have displayed this type of transition between flow behaviors. Two species in particular for implementing this nonequilibrium are benzene and hexafluorobenzene. A quantitative determination of the local number density of these molecular species for a gaseous flow can be performed in a temperature dependent manner via collisional quenching. In this work, measurements of collisional energy transfer are reported for the temperature dependent collisional quenching of NO (A, ²Σ⁺) by benzene and hexafluorobenzene in NO/N₂ flow fields.
There are a number of techniques exist for the characterization of gaseous flow fields with simultaneous thermometry and velocimetry. In this work, a detailed error analysis of the invisible ink nitric oxide monitoring technique is presented. This method involves the initial creation of vibrationally excited NO seeded into a flow with two subsequent “read” measurements; one mapping displacement of the original position of the vibrationally excited NO and a second “read” step to map a second distinct rotational state of NO laser induced fluorescence, providing a temperature measurement. This analysis was performed with a comprehensive kinetics program which both tracks the vibrational excitation of all species present in a flow field as well as the thermal perturbation caused by the invisible ink method. This analysis was performed for three distinct flow facilities located at the National Aerothermochemistry Lab; a pulsed hypersonic test cell, a supersonic high Reynold’s number facility, and a high enthalpy expansion tunnel.
Citation
Winner, Joshua David (2019). Characterization of Collisional Energy Transfer in Flow Diagnostic Methods. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /186153.