Flow transition in dual bell nozzles

The dual bell nozzle is a concept of altitude adaptive nozzles. The flow adapts to the altitude by separation at the wall inflection at low altitude, and full flowing at high altitude. To understand the phenomenology of the flow by the transition from sea-level mode to high altitude mode, a series of tests have been made at the cold flow test bench P6.2 at DLR Lampoldshausen. A dual bell nozzle have been successively shorten and driven in the same conditions for each length. Hence it was possible to observe the flow in the vicinity of the wall inflection using Schlieren optics. Furthermore this study yields the influence of the length ratio between basis and extension on the transition conditions.

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