Congratulations to Tasman Powis, Ryan Brunet and Joshua Lynch, who undertook their final year research projects with me in 2015. Their paper, written by Tasman, entitled Impingement Tones and Associated Shock Instabilities in Supersonic Plug Nozzle Flows, has been published in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Journal.

The paper presents an experimental study of the launch condition for a rocket using an advanced type of nozzle: an aerospike nozzle. Tas showed that when the nozzle is very close to the ground, the flow behaves quite differently to that from a standard nozzle. A little bit further away, and the behaviour is quite similar to the flow from a more conventional nozzle.

 

The study was performed using ultra-high-speed schlieren imaging, combined with microphone measurements.