University of Tennessee Knoxville receives grant from U.S. Air Force’s Air Force Research Laboratory

The University of Tennessee Knoxville has received a grant in the amount of $17.8 million from the US Air Force via its Air Force Research Laboratory, located in Ohio. The grant will be utilized to construct a wind tunnel capable of Mach 5 wind speeds, which is five times the speed of sound, to test materials called the thermal protection system, or TPS. These materials are used in hypersonic vehicles such as space shuttles. The wind tunnel that will be constructed by the University of Tennessee Knoxville will be one of only a few in the world that will have this capability.

According to an article on the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s website, Mark Gragston, an assistant professor with the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering within the UT Space Institute of the UT Tickle College of Engineering, was quoted as explaining why building this wind tunnel is particularly notable and beneficial to the University of Tennessee. He said, “We have all these different kinds of wind tunnels that each specialize in examining some aspect of hypersonic flight — aerodynamics, gas chemistry, material degradation during flight — but nobody has the capability to replicate full hypersonic flight conditions. There’s a big market for increased testing capability in academic research because that’s where new materials are being developed.”

The wind tunnel will be constructed at the UT Space Institute in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Construction will take four years and will be completed with the help of a qualified team, including Damiano Baccarella, an assistant professor and hypersonic aerothermodynamics expert, who has previously helped build a hypersonic wind tunnel, Jacqueline Johnson, a professor and materials scientist, and four other researcher from the University of Tennessee and the University of Dayton, all of whom are skilled in the areas of wind tunnel testing, materials development, and hypersonic flow modeling. 

Johnson said of the assembled individuals, “This team was carefully chosen to bring different aspects together, and nobody is trying to be the boss. There’s a lot of work to do, and it cannot be done by UTSI alone.”

Joining the team of experts for the construction process is a group of graduate students, with one being assigned to each grant investigator, to help contribute to the project, as well as gain their own unique set of skills that can only be gained from taking part in a project such as this one.

“There are several types of hypersonics facilities, and you can learn how to build all of them from textbooks except for this kind. The students who are around while this is being built, and are helping build it, will have a truly unique opportunity,” said Gragston.

Speaking to the importance of being able to test TPS in this kind of environment, Johnson said, “The TPS is not continuous. Every joint between tiles, and even the glue that sticks the TPS to the fuselage, is a weakness. We have had two glaring examples of what happens when the TPS is weak or damaged in the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters.”

The grant, which is being funded by the U.S. Air Force through the Air Force Research Laboratory, is paying for the construction of the wind tunnel as well as for the work of graduate students on the project.

For more information about the University of Tennessee Knoxville, visit the school’s website.