Wind tunnel facilities

The "Wind tunnel" is a facility, by artificially producing airflow relative to a stationary body, that measures aerodynamic force and pressure distribution to simulate the actual flight of airplane or orbiting plane in the air.
The Aerospace Research and Development Directorate of JAXA has maintained various wind tunnels so as to be able to meet tests in various velocity range from low to hypersonic speed. The Center has controlled following wind tunnels.

Aerodynamic

The Aerodynamics Research Group conducts research on advanced measuring technology and airflows around objects (aircraft and orbiting planes etc.) that fly in the atmosphere. In particular, fundamental research is conducted on the following:
* reduction of friction drag on objects
* control of flow separation
* acoustic noise
* technology to accurately measure resistance of objects
* development of non-intrusive and accurate measurement technology using molecular paint sensitive to pressure and temperatures on the surface of an object
* experimental and numerical research of high temperature flows around an ultrahigh speed vehicle such as an orbiting plane at re-entry.

Research on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

JAXA performs turbulent flow combustion direct numerical simulation through DNS (Direct Numerical Simulation) and numerical simulation of the combustion behavior and control of a methane dilution premixed combustion plane by the LES (Large-Eddy Simulation) to elucidate combustion phenomena. Simulation is performed for the overall surroundings of a reusable space vehicle and H-IIA Launch Vehicle. One of the unique characteristics of this simulation is that the combustion gas "plume," which is exhausted from a launch vehicle nozzle, is taken into consideration. In addition, the fine structure of turbulent flows is analyzed in detail to analyze turbulent flows with high accuracy so that they can be applied for the actual configuration of airplanes and to carry out research on a turbulent flow model.