The folks at Bryan Tool are excited to be supporting a cutting edge program at one of the region’s top universities, the University of Virginia (UVA). Through funding from the Hyper-X Program Office at NASA Langley, an experimental study of a dual-mode scramjet combustor is being conducted at the Aerospace Research Laboratory, located at UVA. Using conventional instrumentation and multiple laser-based diagnostic techniques, the study aims to further the understanding of the fuel-air mixing and combustion processes within the combustor and to resolve the uncertainty in CFD predictions of such flows.
The majority of the experiments are being conducted using a high-enthalpy, continuous-flow facility. This facility simulates Mach 5 flight of a scramjet operating with ramp fuel injection of hydrogen. NASA Langley is performing numerical modeling of the combustor and these results are being compared with the experimental measurements.
The wind tunnel consists of an oil-free two-stage compressor, an iodine seeding chamber, a two-dimensional Laval nozzle, the test section provided by Bryan Tool and exhaust ducts. Bryan Tool’s Vice President, Tim Bryan, stated “It is very rewarding to be recognized for our ability to participate in a NASA funded project of this caliber.” The team at Bryan Tool believe their problem solving capabilities and capacity for a project of this complexity are good examples of the type of things that set them apart from most of the other machine shops in Virginia.