February 29, 2012
The University of Texas at Austin’s ASE/EM Department is pleased to announce the opening of its new multidisciplinary fluid dynamics facility located at the Pickle Research Campus. The facility, which includes an open-jet, open-circuit wind tunnel enclosed within an anechoic (echo-free) chamber, will provide researchers with the opportunity to study a variety of problems in the field of fluid dynamics and aeroacoustics.
Upon joining UT in 2008, Dr. Charles E. Tinney soon realized that the department was in need of a new experimental facility for studying problems in fluid mechanics. After meeting with Dr. Jayant Sirohi (who also joined ASE/EM that semester), it was discovered that the two had shared scientific interests, but with different areas of expertise.
“It made sense for us to combine some of our resources in order to develop a unique facility capable of addressing a number of outstanding problems that continue to plague a variety of real world systems, such as helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, wind turbines, supersonic and hypersonic vehicles,” Tinney said.
One of several new themes of interest to students and colleagues collaborating with Tinney in the new facility is the propagation of noise from high-speed jets. For example, the prominent source of noise from aircraft engines emanates from the turbulent mixing of a high-speed and high-temperature exhaust with the atmosphere. In rocket engines, this source of noise is intense enough to cause electronic and mechanical component failures as well as produce adverse environmental conditions that are detrimental to both passengers and payload. Finding a solution to a problem such as this could eventually lead to the development of more advanced spaceflight vehicles capable of performing safe and reliable mission operations and at a dramatically reduced cost.
The general design of the new facility came together during the 2008-09 academic semester with construction commencing shortly after on June 1, 2009.
“One of the things that makes this facility so special is that it was completely engineered and built using our own outstanding students and staff,” Tinney said. “A project like this is normally done by outside contractors, and given the uniqueness of the design, such a facility could take years to complete. By having performed all of the work ourselves, we had better flexibility over design changes and could understand immediately its effect on the performance characteristics and cost of the facility. When necessary, our team met with licensed engineers in order to ensure that we were building a safe environment for the types of conditions we are testing.”
Tinney said one of the great things about being in Austin is the tremendous amount of expertise in the field of acoustics.
“Our colleagues in the Mechanical Engineering Department run an outstanding acoustics program that has produced a great number of highly trained acousticians still living and functioning in the Austin area. We were able to leverage off this expertise to ensure that this new facility was being designed and built to the highest standards in terms of wedge design and material selection.”
This past year, an existing high-pressure (2,700psi) compressed air system was extended to the new facility, which forms the backbone of the group’s high-speed flow research. Funding began to arrive toward the end of last summer when Tinney’s group was connecting the piping system for the high-pressure airline.
“It’s amazing – we finished building the anechoic chamber and wind tunnel exhaust last year, but as soon as we connected the piping system for the high-pressure airline, funding arrived. We currently have a number of exciting projects being sponsored by agencies ranging from the Air-Force (AFOSR) and NASA (MSFC and JSC) to the Army Research Office (ARO) and Navy (ONR).”
Tinney and his students and colleagues are staying extremely busy with research in the new facility. Research topics range anywhere from shock-wave boundary layer interaction and the vibro-acoustic loads of rocket nozzles during transient start-ups, to vortex jitter and vortex tumbling in the wake of four-bladed rotors in hover.
