THE TRACKING OF CRITICAL FLOW FEATURES (CFFS) SUCH AS STAGNATION POINT, FLOW SEPARATION, SHOCK, AND TRANSIT…

Public award description

THE TRACKING OF CRITICAL FLOW FEATURES (CFFS) SUCH AS STAGNATION POINT, FLOW SEPARATION, SHOCK, AND TRANSITION IN FLIGHT PROVIDES INSIGHT INTO ACTUAL AIRCRAFT PERFORMANCE/SAFETY. SENSING OF THESE CFFS ACROSS FLIGHT REGIMES INVOLVES NUMEROUS CHALLENGES SUCH AS A WIDE TEMPERATURE/PRESSURE RANGE FROM SUBSONIC TO HYPERSONIC FLOWS. TAO SYSTEMS, MESOSCRIBE TECHNOLOGIES AND VIRGINIA TECH PROPOSE TO DEVELOP A NOVEL DIRECT-WRITE SENSOR ARCHITECTURE FOR THE IN-FLIGHT MEASUREMENT OF SKIN FRICTION AND HEAT FLUX THAT IS SURVIVABLE TO TEMPERATURES EXCEEDING 1000 DEG. C WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY PROVIDING FAST RESPONSE NECESSARY FOR REAL-TIME SIGNAL PROCESSING TO OBTAIN CFFS. AS A CONSEQUENCE, THIS TECHNOLOGY WILL EXTEND THE UTILITY OF CFFS FOR AEROSERVOELASTIC CONTROL FROM SUBSONIC TO SUPERSONIC AND HYPERSONIC FLOWS, AS WELL AS PROVIDE TEST INFORMATION FROM EXPERIMENTS IN FLIGHT.