Heat Transfer of Nanofiber Coatings in Hypersonic Flow

Abstract

An experiment was undertaken to study the effect of nanofiber coatings on heat transfer rates in hypersonic flow. A model with interchangeable inserts was designed and tested in the Ohio State University’s open jet Mach 6 wind tunnel. For this experiment the wind tunnel was operated at a stagnation temperature of 760°R and a stagnation pressure of 775 psi. The wind tunnel model was made from titanium and the inserts were made from Ti64 alloy to allow for the application of nanofiber coatings. Three conditions were used for comparison, the baseline test plates w ith no coating, a TiO2 spattered plates and a nanofi ber coated ins erts. The nanofiber coating was applied by the Material Science and Engineering group. The data has shown that this particular nanofiber coating has negligible effect on the heat transfer rates in comparison with both the uncoated alloy and the TiO 2 coatings.