Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Air Force Builds Quiet Mach 6 Wind Tunnel

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hold-on-to-your-hat dept.

An anonymous reader writes "To help design 'scramjets' -- vehicles that'll travel thousands of miles per hour as they leave the atmosphere and zip around the globe -- the U.S. Air Force has just funded a wind tunnel that operates quietly at Mach 6. To get a quiet flow, the throat of the Mach 6 nozzle must be polished to a near-perfect mirror finish, eliminating roughness that would trip the flow."

9 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. I love being an undergrad... by metaomni · · Score: 5, Funny
    To help ensure this ultra-clean condition, engineers enlisted the help of an undergraduate student who is a spelunker. The slender student crawled through a 120-foot section of the wind tunnel, wearing a suit like those worn by technicians in clean rooms, and wiped down the inside of the stainless-steel pipe. The pipe is only 18 inches in diameter.

    We undergrads are the guineapigs of science, the people who do the things no one else wants to... all in exchange for $20. And we LIKE IT!

    1. Re:I love being an undergrad... by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

      Could be worse though, the lecturers at my Uni would have turned on the airflow if it would have saved them twenty bucks.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  2. Another old one... by isny · · Score: 5, Funny

    Grad student 1: This job sucks.
    Grad student 2 (turning on wind tunnel): No, it blows!

    Thank you, I'll be here all day.

  3. Re:I loved the part where... by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even if it didn't kill you, you'd certainly be exhausted.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  4. Re:"Quiet"? by slashdotnickname · · Score: 5, Funny

    From reading the article, I gather "quiet" is being used here as a technical term which is roughly synonymous with laminar, or lack of turbulence (rather than "gee I wish my vacuum cleaner were quiet").

    Can anybody with the right background tell me whether that's the case?

    You're correct, they mean "quiet" in a laminar sense. Mach 6 wind will sound pretty loud to human ears regardless of how turbulance-free it is, just because of the immense air pressure... but it won't be "noisy" loud.

    As far as my background, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

  5. Re:18 inches by thatshortkid · · Score: 2, Funny

    It will still allow for the scramjets to be tested on a limited scale in real life conditions without creating a multimillion dollar delivery package that costs millions per launch and could (crash|explode|burn up) and cost tens of millions more.

    so you're saying it's not the size of the pipe, but how you use it?

    --
    The IRS is the one organization that you don't want to fuck with. Remember, these are the guys who took down Al Capone.
  6. Gillette announces the Mach 7 by SuperBanana · · Score: 5, Funny
    'Quiet' Mach 6 wind tunnel helps shape future aircraft

    Executives at Gillette have announced the Mach 7 in response to Purdue's Mach 6 wind tunnel. "We simply cannot be outdone on Mach numbers."

    When asked what the commercial for the Mach 7 will feature, the unnammed executive replied, "jet fighters, women, racecars, women, missiles, women, bullets...it will be more spectacular than watching the entire French airforce crash into a fireworks factory."

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
  7. Re:Some further comments by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Funny

    There will be two occupants in the cockpit of the future. A man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to bite the man if he tries to touch anything.

  8. Ahh, the life of a grad student by jaxon6 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Remember, it's not a job, it's an indenture.

    --
    Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...