Wind-tunnel testing of highly-instrumented rigid models is the current standard for the estimation of unsteady environments acting on a launch vehicle during ascent. However, uncertainties are present in how well these constant condition wind-tunnel data model the unsteady environments for a full-scale launch vehicle during accelerating flight. The Ares I-X wind-tunnel and flight tests provided rich data sets for comparative analysis that have been used to develop answers to the question of tunnel-to-flight validity and uncertainty. In this paper, additional comparisons are presented for the unsteady pressure data acquired during wind-tunnel and flight testing to describe current methods that are used to evaluate preflight predictions. Utilizing these methods to generate ensembles of flight-comparable realizations from wind-tunnel data is shown to yield fluctuating magnitudes and spectra that compare well with flight data for the Ares I-X flight test vehicle throughout the transonic flight regime.
Comparison of Wind-Tunnel and Flight Unsteady Pressure Environments for the Ares I-X Flight Test Vehicle
2021
12 pages
Report
No indication
English
Comparison of Ares I-X Flight and Wind-Tunnel Aeroacoustic Data
Online Contents | 2012
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