University of Texas at San Antonio Hypersonic Ludwieg Tube

The University of Texas at San Antonio has recently completed a hypersonic Ludwieg tube facility with a nominal operating Mach number of 7. For the Mach 7 facility at UTSA, a 2”-long target field of view experiences over 1600 flow-lengths of hypersonic flow during a single test, sufficient for steady-state assumptions to be made. The facility has an 8” × 8” test section and the driver tube can be pressurized using either compressed gas bottles or a four-stage compressor—depending on the desired gas composition—providing stagnation pressures up to approximately 2000 psi.