Table Of ContentHigh Reynolds Number Flows
Using Liquid and Gaseous Helium
Russell J. Donnelly
Editor
High Reynolds NUlllber
Flows Using Liquid and
Gaseous Helium
Discussion of Liquid and Gaseous Helium
as Test Fluids
Including papers from The Seventh Oregon Conference on Low
Temperature Physics, University of Oregon, October 23-25, 1989
With 180 Figures
Springer-Verlag
New York Berlin Heidelberg London Paris
Tokyo Hong Kong Barcelona Budapest
Russell J. Donnelly
Department of Physics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
USA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
High Reynolds number flows using liquid and gaseous helium :
discussion of liquid and gaseous helium as test fluids : including
papers from the Seventh Oregon Conference on Low Temperature
Physics, University of Oregon, October 23-25, 1989/ sponsored by
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency through the United
States Office of Naval Research: [edited] by Russell J. Donnelly.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13:978-1-4612-7799-6
l. Fluid dynamics-Congresses. 2. Reynolds number-Congresses.
3. Helium - Congresses. 4. Liquid helium - Congresses. I. Donnelly,
Russell J. II. Oregon Conference on Low Temperature Physics (7th:
1989 : University of Oregon) III. United States. Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. IV. United States. Office of Naval
Research.
QC150.H55 1991
532'.05-dc20 91-32312
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
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987654321
ISBN-13:978-1-4612-7799-6 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4612-3108-0
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4612-3108-0
Preface
Liquid helium has been studied for its intrinsic interest through much of the
20th century. In the past decade, much has been learned about heat transfer
in liquid helium because of the need to cool superconducting magnets and other
devices. The topic of the Seventh Oregon Conference on Low Temperature
Physics was an applied one, namely the use of liquid and gaseous helium to
generate high Reynolds number flows. The low kinematic viscosity of liquid
helium automatically makes high Reynolds numbers accessible and the question
addressed in this conference was to explore various possibilities to see what
practical devices might be built using liquid or gaseous helium. There are a
number of possibilities: construction of a wind tunnel using critical helium
gas, free surface testing, low speed flow facilities using helium I and helium
ll. At the time of the conference, most consideration had been given to the
last possibility because it seemed both possible and useful to build a flow facility
which could reach unprecedented Reynolds numbers. Such a device could be
useful in pure research for studying turbulence, and in applied research for
testing models much as is done in a water tunnel.
In order to examine these possibilities in detail, we invited a wide range of
experts to Eugene in October 1989 to present papers on their own specialties
and to listen to presentations on the liquid helium proposals. While many of
our attendees were not known to one another before the conference, it soon
became evident that there were exciting things to talk about and that the
proceedings of the conference should appear in permanent form. I was fortunate
enough to contact Dr. Thomas von Foerster of Springer-Verlag in New York,
who agreed to publish the results of the conference as a small volume.
The papers presented here were prepared after the decision to have a
published record, and an effort has been made to include ideas which came
from the conference and from subsequent research.
As a result the papers here are less of a conference report than contributions
to a volume proposing the use of helium as a test fluid. I have written the first
article as an attempt to outline what I know on the subject of testing with liquid
and gaseous helium, some of which was learned after the conference ended.
I have attempted to make this article self-contained as an introduction to the
subject. The remaining papers fill out many of the details which I have been
unable to cover in my own survey. These papers concern existing facilities and
research programs, ranging from testing of models to modem research in
turbulence. The final seven papers explore various aspects of low temperature
physics which bear on the practical possibility of high Reynolds numbers
research with liquid and gaseous helium.
We reproduce an important paper on high Reynolds number wind tunnels
vi Preface
by courtesy of Dr. Ronald Smelt of Oakland, Oregon. Smelt wrote this paper
in 1945 as Chief of High Speed Flight at the Royal Aircraft Establishment,
Famborough, England. The paper became available only in 1979, 34 years
after he wrote it. Now retired from the position of Vice President and Chief
Scientist of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, I came to know him only after this
conference took place.
Early support for the idea of generating high Reynolds numbers using liquid
helium came from Gary W. Jones of DARPA, who made funds available
through ONR in a program administered by Edwin Rood. I am grateful to
Gary Jones and Edwin Rood for their support and to Patrick Purtell for
continuing support from ONR through grant ONR NOOOI4-89-1274.
The Oregon Conferences on Low Temperature Physics have concentrated
on supertluidity, one of the most fundamental subjects in condensed matter
physics. It has been a remarkable experience to come to know the engineers
whose brilliant work in testing and in turbulence is represented by the papers
in this volume.
I hope the discussions presented here will prove to be but the first step in
the common goal of engineers and scientists in achieving the highest Reynolds
numbers in a controlled environment.
August, 1991 Russell J. Donnelly
Contents
Preface v
Contributors ix
Introduction
Liquid and Gaseous Helium as Test Fluids 3
Russell J. Donnelly
Modern Wind Tunnels
Cryogenic Wind Tunnels 53
Robert A. Kilgore
Aerodynamic Testing in Cryogenic Nitrogen Gas - A Precursor to
Testing in Super fluid Helium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Pierce L. Lawing
High Reynolds Number Test Requirements in Low Speed
Aerodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
D.M. Bushnell and G.C. Greene
Flow Visualization 87
Leonard M. Weinstein
On the Measurement of Subsonic Flow Around an Appended Body
of Revolution at Cryogenic Conditions in the NTF . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 105
D.W. Coder, S.G. Flechner, and J.B. Peterson, Jr.
Water Thnnels 125
Lisa J. Bjarke
The Six Component Magnetic Suspension System for
Wind Tunnel Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 131
M.J. Goodyer
Magnetic Suspension - Today's Marvel, Tomorrow's Tool 153
Pierce L. Lawing
viii Contents
Recent Aerodynamic Measurements with Magnetic
Suspension Systems ......................................... 165
Colin P. Britcher
Remarks on High-Reynolds-Number Turbulence Experiments
and Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 181
K.R. Sreenivasan
Helium
Micro and Macro Turbulence in Superfluid Helium 187
K.W. Schwarz
Application of Flow Visualization Technique to Superf low
Experiment .......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 209
N. Ichikawa and M. Murakami
Laser Doppler Velocimeter Applied to Superf low Measurement .... 215
M. Murakami, T. Yamazaki, A. Nakano, and H. Nakai
Experimental Investigations of He II Flows at High
Reynolds Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 223
S.W. Van Sciver
A Study of Homogeneous Turbulence in Superf luid Helium 233
Michael R. Smith and Russell J. Donnelly
Thermal Convection in Liquid Helium ......................... 243
Joseph J. Niemela and Russell J. Donnelly
Helium Fluid Flow Facility Cryogenic System .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 253
G.E. McIntosh and K.R. Leonard
Appendix
Power Economy in High-Speed Wind Thnnels by Choice of Working
Fluid and Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 265
R. Smelt
Contributors
Russell J. Donnelly Physics Department
University of Oregon
Willamette Hall
Eugene, OR 97403
Robert Kilgore Applied Aerodynamics Division
NASA Langley Research Center
MS285
Hampton, VA 23665-5225
Pierce Lawing NASA Langley Research Center
MS267
Hampton, V A 23665-5225
D.M. Bushnell NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA 23665-5225
G.C. Greene NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA 23665-5225
Leonard Weinstein Fluid Mechanics Division
NASA Langley Research Center
MS 163
Hampton, VA 23665-5225
David Coder David Taylor Naval Research & Dev. Center
Code 1543
Bethesda, MD 20084
S.G. Flechner NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA 23665-5225
J.B. Peterson, Jr. NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA 23665-5225
x Contributors
Lisa Bjarke NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility
MS D-OFA
P.O. Box 273
Edwards, CA 93523-5000
Michael Goodyer Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
England
Colin Britcher Old Dominion University
IMEDD
Norfolk, V A 23529-0247
K. R. Sreenivasan Department of Mechanical Engineering
P.O. Box 2159 Yale Station
New Haven, CT 06520-2159
Klaus Schwarz mM, Thomas J. Watson Research Center
P.O. Box 218
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
N aoiki Ichikawa Applied Physics & Information Science
1 - 2 Namiki
Tsukuba-City
Ibaraki 305
Japan
Masahide Murakami Institute of Engineering Mechanics
Tsubuka University
Tsubuka
Ibaraki 305
Japan
T. Yamazaki Tsubuka University
Tsubuka
Ibaraki 305
Japan
Contributors xi
A. Nakano Tsubuka University
Tsubuka
Ibaraki 305
Japan
H. Nakai Tsubuka University
Tsubuka
Ibaraki 305
Japan
Steven Van Sciver Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
921 Engineering Research Building
1500 Johnson Drive
Madison, WI 53709-1687
Michael Smith Department of Physics
University of Oregon
Willamette Hall
Eugene, OR 97403
Joseph Niemela Department of Physics
University of Oregon
Willamette Hall
Eugene, OR 97403
Glen Mcintosh Cryogenic Technical Services
3445 Penrose Place
Suite 230
Boulder, CO 80301
K.R. Leonard Cryogenic Technical Services
3445 Penrose Place
Suite 230
Boulder, CO 80301
Ronald Smelt 7250 Driver Valley Road
Oakland OR 97462
