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8'x6' Supersonic Wind Tunnel
8x6 Home
Quick Facts
Characteristics
Acquisition
Contact Information
Gallery
Facility Fact

A calibration area provides instrumentation and propulsion air systems if quantification of deflection constants and propulsive tares are required.



Lockheed model installed in the 8x6 C-1974-907: General Dynamics model in the 8x6 SWT
Acquisition
Model Data and Control System Capabilities
  • Pressure Systems
    ESP is an off the shelf electronically scanned pressure system. The system consists of numerous 32 port, rack mounted modules from +/-2.5 PSID to +500 PSID, located outside the test chamber. Each module has a check pressure to assure the module is performing correctly and can be calibrated in place using up to 5 highly accurate calibration pressures to maintain the overall system accuracy of +/-0.05% of range. This calibration is performed every 2 hours.
    For the 8x6, the following ranges are typically provided:
    • 384 ports +/- 15 PSID Barometric Ref

  • Data System - Escort
    Escort, the steady state data acquisition system, uses a DEC Alpha microprocessor to provide:
    • An X window based system
    • Real time on-line acquisition of analog signals
    • Conversion of raw 10Hz filtered digitized Neff data to engineering units
    • Computed performance calculations, which can be displayed in a variety of tabular and graphical formats.
    • Limit checking on all selected channels
    • 1 second update rate

    Escort can stand alone to meet all secure test requirements or it can be connected to a central processing cluster, which facilitates software application development, downloading of software, uploading and storage of facility tables, post processing of data and transmitting of data to a data collector for archival storage.
    For the 8x6, Escort provides the following:
    • Accuracy for the Neff 400 is +/- 0.05% of range
    • Off-site access to data
    • 240 channels of which 220 are available for the test article
    • 48 temperatures from type J
    • 48 temperatures from type T
    • 48 temperatures from type E
  • Dynamic Data System
    The transient data system provides multi-channel high speed digitized acquisition of rapidly changing cyclic on non-periodic impulse type events. The system consists of:
    • A front end Precision Filter amplifiers with elliptical (132 dB/oct) or linear phase (46 dB/oct) anti aliasing filters (132 dB per octave)
    • Off loading the data by FTPing, in near real time, to either our computer or yours for post processing
    • 16 Bit A/D per channel
    • Throughput of 40 million samples per second
  • Flow Visualization
    • Pressure sensitive paint
    • Conventional Schlieren systems
    • Sheet laser
    • Oil flow visualization
    • High speed video
  • Test Article Controls
    • Digital model control system with graphical interface
    • Automated test article sequencing system
  • Remote Access Control Room
    • Real-time remote access to all data
    • Video conferencing in real time
    • Workstations supplied for remote site
    • Secure network connections provided
 
Further Information
NASA's ATP Program
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8'x6' Supersonic Wind Tunnel (8x6)
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"The right facility at the right time" - NASA Aeronautics Test Program




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NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA Official: Tony Springer
Last Updated: October 17, 2011
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