Technical interchange meeting focuses on hypersonic capabilities

Published Dec. 8, 2014
By Deidre Ortiz
AEDC/PA

ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. -- An Air Force and Navy Technical Interchange Meeting on ground testing of materials for high-speed aerospace applications was held here last month to discuss needs across the community in terms of current tools and methodologies.

Representatives from AEDC, Air Force Research Laboratory, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and several universities gathered Nov. 19-20, 2014, to exchange information.

According to Glenn Liston, chief of the AFRL High Speed Experimentation Branch at AEDC, the goal of the meeting was to better characterize what's currently being used by the materials community to evaluate oxidation and ablation behavior for high-speed applications.

"This includes understanding their merit as screening tools to judge materials performance in actual aerospace flight conditions," Liston said. "It also includes anchoring the various tools and methodologies against accepted reference non-flight test techniques."

Topics of discussion included development of new testing paradigms for traditionally higher-cost techniques that enable screening in simulated relevant environments at costs that are affordable for the basic research community and implementing new methods to accurately correlate the disparate results derived from the various test techniques commonly used by the materials community. A dedicated lab-scale arc jet facility with appropriate diagnostics, flexible accessibility and cost effectiveness was one example.

The group plans to host future workshops, technical interchanges and projects, possibly in conjunction with the National Space & Missile Materials Symposium or other national forums.