Texas A&M's newest wind tunnel is a blast
COLLEGE STATION -- Faculty and students from multiple departments at Texas A&M University have teamed up to build the university's fastest wind tunnel yet.
The Texas A&M National Aerothermochemistry and Hypersonics Laboratory are in the last stages of building the Hypervelocity Expansion Tunnel, "a large-scale shock tunnel type facility" that generates high temperatures and high pressure. The tunnel is about 0.9 meters in diameter and can solicit speeds up to Mach 15 -- about 11,500 mph. The tunnel was developed with support from the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Rodney Bowersox, head of A&M's aerospace engineering department, said the research will help study the aerodynamics and chemistry of systems such as hypersonic aircrafts.
"The work that we do in the laboratory, it's basic science directed toward understanding and being able to predict hypersonic flow to make hypersonic vehicles safe and reliable," Bowersox said.
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