A new system for recording unstable aerodynamic phenomena in NAVSWC Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel #9

Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel #9, located at the US Naval Surface Warfare Center in Silver Spring, MD, is a blowdown wind tunnel which operates at Mach numbers 8, 10, and 14. The desire to better quantify transient events has led to the procurement of a 20,000,000-sample/s data acquisition system. The new system, high-speed data acquisition and recording equipment (HSDARE), has been operational since June, 1990, and is available for Tunnel 9 tests requiring high temporal resolution. The HSDARE was purchased to provide transient signal acquisition while maintaining the capability to sample high quantities of standard speed sensors. The HSDARE samples signals one million times per second and resolves signals was bandwidths up to 100 kHz. The HSDARE provides the transient data acquisition function of the Tunnel 9 data acquisition facility. The architectures of HSDARE and earlier DARE versions are described. The earlier DARE versions are used for acquiring steady-state signals