Numerical Assessment of Test Time Characteristics in the Rutgers Expansion Tube Facility

High-fidelity viscous numerical simulations are performed to characterize the run time of the expansion tube currently under construction at Rutgers, the so-called Gas and Aerothermo- dynamic Nozzle-Free Device Advanced Laboratory Facility (GANDALF). To model this unsteady driver–driven–expansion configuration, a multispecies compressible solver, HAVAFoam, is developed by combining a high-speed solver with a multispecies reacting solver. We validate our findings using theoretical inviscid one-dimensional analysis. This work is unique, as for the first time the entire driver–driven–expansion tube is modeled to characterize the impact of boundary-layer growth and turbulence effects on the facility runtime. Very good agreement is achieved with the previous theoretical inviscid work for the hypervelocity expansion tube (HET) expansion tube. The runtime of the facility is reported using a 2-D axisymmetric model with slip (inviscid) and no-slip wall (viscous) conditions. We present the