Using radiative heating to perform fluid-thermal-structural interaction experiments in a short-duration hypersonic wind tunnel

This work discusses the design and implementation of close-proximity radiative heaters for aerothermoelastic experiments in short-duration hypersonic facilities. The radiators are employed to selectively heat a compliant panel both to a specific temperature and to impose a prescribed thermal spatial distribution. Analytical and numerical models are used to demonstrate the performance of these radiators. The analytical study shows that the temperature of the test panel is primarily a function of the panel thickness and the proximity of the heater. A 3D finite element study confirmed these predictions and found that reasonable temperature uniformity could be achieved on the compliant panel (∆T < 60 K for T_max = 550 K) for practical arrangements. FEM simulations also demonstrated that non-uniform temperature distributions can be prescribed on the panel through use of a nonuniform heater but that these distributions are smeared both by thermal conduction in the panel and radiative crosstalk in the panel-heater gap.