Preliminary Measurements on the BOLT Geometry in the Supersonic Low Disturbance Tunnel

Experiments were performed in the Mach 3.5 Supersonic Low Disturbance Tunnel on the BOundary-Layer
Transition (BOLT) geometry. The goal of this campaign was to assess changes to the transition front by varying
the freestream noise and the model surface quality. The model was printed of polycarbonate and is 30% scale
of the flight geometry. It was tested under noisy and quiet conditions at different streamwise positions in the
tunnel and was also tested before and after improvements were made to the model surface through sanding and
gap reduction. Pitch and yaw angles were nominally zero. The model surface temperature was measured using
infrared thermography and thermocouples as the unit Reynolds number was swept from 4.75 – 15.8 × 106
m−1. Boundary-layer transition was observed near the midspan of the model for unit Reynolds numbers
above 10×106 m−1 in quiet flow, while transition was already observed on the shoulders below 5×106 m−1 in noisy flow. The model surface enhancements improved the symmetry of the transition front for quiet flow but made only slight differences for noisy flow. In quiet flow, the impact of streamwise positioning on transition was more significant on the model shoulders compared to the central region. The difference in the shoulder
heating was likely due to variation in noise radiated from the nozzle sidewalls. The total temperature and initial
wall temperatures were near 300 K and 293 K, respectively, which generally resulted in negative convective
heat-flux values into the model. Hot-wire anemometry was also utilized to characterize the freestream and
to conduct a planar survey near the base of the model for the 7.92 × 106 m−1 quiet condition. The survey captured the thickening of the boundary layer at the centerline and the vortical nature of the flow outboard of it. Spectral analysis of the mass-flux fluctuations near the midspan demonstrates that the boundary layer is laminar and suggests that the thick boundary layer caused the relatively warm centerline observed in the infrared images.