| Popis: |
In Brazil, most of the launching vehicles and rockets are launched from the Centro de Lancamento de Alcântara, CLA, which is a launch site with several favorable features, mostly due its privileged location, very close to the Equator line. #evertheless, the CLA topology has a coastal cliff occurrence of about 40m high at the edge of the sea land, which can modify the atmospheric boundary layer characteristics, and consequently affect the safety during launching operations, given that the rockets launch pad and the Mobile Integration Tower (MIT), the building where the space vehicles are assembled, is located around 150 – 200 m from the sea border, respectively. In continuation to previous studies, the main purpose of the present work is to investigate, experimentally, the effects of the wind incidence angles, taking into account the irregular cliff topology, on the mean wind flow pattern around the MIT neighborhood. Wind tunnel measurements using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique were conducted for Reynolds number (Rel) values based on the cliff height, l, of 5.4x10 5 , 1.4x10 6 and 2.0x10 6 . The results obtained indicate that the investigated parameters, cliff slope and the wind incidence angle, play a significant role in the flow features in the CLA launching system. The size of the recirculation bubble, in case of flow separation, as well as the vorticity intensity at the cliff edge and in the MIT neighborhood can be quite different depending on these parameters. It seems that steeper the cliff slope, θ, stronger is the flow separation at the cliff edge, and weaker is the vortexes formed behind the MIT. |
