HSWT

The hypersonic wind tunnel project was inspired by the NASA's arc-jet facility and was my personal attempt at creating something that could simulate similar conditions from hardware store parts in my garage. The main principle was to expand air to hundreds of times its original volume through a convergent-divergent nozzle and convert as much of its pressure energy into velocity. The high pressure ratio required meant a vacuum tank was needed to prevent flow separation and not use pressures beyond that of a high-end shop compressor. This expansion also led to significant cooling and required a heat source, and in this case it used a miniaturized arc jet to superheat the air with a confined electrical arc. Shockwaves were then visualized using Schlieren imaging to see the density gradients within the test chamber through optical glass windows. To minimize system cost and footprint, all tests only lasted about 100 milliseconds before the pressure difference became insufficient for hypersonic flow.