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Construction of the unitary plan wind tunnel for the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in Moffett Field, California. Beginning construction in 1950-51 and completing in 1955. Video shows the building of all stages of construction from the foundation to full completion and view of final building set up. Video should be download and viewed for best results and has run time of 7:07 with color but no sound.
Pressure transducers have been the instrumentation of choice for measuring unsteady flow phenomena. With recent advances in high-speed cameras, high-powered LEDs, and fast-response, pressure-sensitive paint, the unsteady pressure-sensitive paint (uPSP) technique has become a valuable alternative for production wind tunnel facilities, enabling time-resolved measurements of unsteady pressure fluctuations over a dense spatial grid on a wind tunnel model. Launch vehicle ground tests have proven to be a particularly well-matched application for uPSP due to the high signal level relative to tunnel background acoustics, relatively simple camera optical access, and rigidity of the model in wind-on test conditions. This presentation will highlight recent advances in data reduction of uPSP measurement data from recent launch vehicle wind tunnel tests at the NASA Ames Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel Complex (UPWT). The system can provide both localized surface pressure spectra as well as regional or zonal estimates of turbulence correlation model parameters. In addition, integrated vehicle-scale loads can be provided for buffet analysis. Data is reduced at the on-premise NASA Advanced Supercomputer (NAS) Division for just-in-time delivery of results during an ongoing wind tunnel test.
Pressure transducers have been the instrumentation of choice for measuring unsteady flow phenomena. With recent advances in high-speed cameras, high-powered LEDs, and fast-response, pressure-sensitive paint, the unsteady pressure-sensitive paint (uPSP) technique has become a valuable alternative for production wind tunnel facilities, enabling time-resolved measurements of unsteady pressure fluctuations over a dense spatial grid on a wind tunnel model. Launch vehicle ground tests have proven to be a particularly well-matched application for uPSP due to the high signal level relative to tunnel background acoustics, relatively simple camera optical access, and rigidity of the model in wind-on test conditions. This presentation will highlight recent advances in data reduction of uPSP measurement data from recent launch vehicle wind tunnel tests at the NASA Ames Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel Complex (UPWT). The system can provide both localized surface pressure spectra as well as regional or zonal estimates of turbulence correlation model parameters. In addition, integrated vehicle-scale loads can be provided for buffet analysis. Data is reduced at the on-premise NASA Advanced Supercomputer (NAS) Division for just-in-time delivery of results during an ongoing wind tunnel test.