In addition to complete wind tunnels, ASE has designed and supplied hundreds of components and subsystems to a variety of customers. The projects below illustrate ASE’s capability to meet customer needs.

 
CIRA Plasma Wind Tunnel Heat Exchanger
(Low Density, High Temperature)
ASE provided the design, fabrication and installation of a Plasma Heat Exchanger to CIRA (the Italian Agency for Aerospace Research) as a part of the Plasma Wind Tunnel Project.  This facility is a key part of the European Space Agency (ESA) research and development program, to be used for development of Thermal Protection Systems for shuttle type vehicles.  The heat exchanger tube bundle shown in the picture is water cooled and has approximately 2000 longitudinal tubes, which  remove up to 36 MW of heat from the 7000^o C plasma flow stream. The diameter of the heat exchanger shell is 6.1 meters.  The shell is cooled with water through dimpled plates.

 
CIRA Plasma Wind Tunnel Air Supply (High Pressure, Multiple Ports, Tight Control)
ASE also delivered a Compressed Air System that is a key part of the same CIRA Plasma Wind Tunnel (PWT) facility project described above.  This system is comprised of valves and meters mounted on three panels that provide regulated and controlled air flow to the wind tunnel.  This air is heated by the 70MW arc heater and accelerated by a hypersonic nozzle to form the heated plasma that flows over the test article in the test section. The valves and meters accurately control and measure the flow over a wide range of flow rates and pressures. ASE's scope of supply for this system included detail design, documentation, procurement, fabrication, shop tests, transport, erection, site tests, operational, acceptance and validation tests. Shop tests included system calibration and performance tests that were conducted at ASE's FluiDyne Aerotest  Laboratory.
 

NTF Vent Stack Blower System
(Cryogenic Nitrogen Venting)

The National Transonic Facility (NTF) located at NASA Langley Research Center is a continuous closed circuit cryogenic wind tunnel capable of achieving full scale aircraft Reynolds numbers of up to 120 million. The facility operates at temperatures down to -320^o F by direct spray injection of liquid nitrogen which offsets the energy input of the 130,000 hp fan drive system. The facility also operates at pressures up to 9 atmospheres. ASE was responsible for a major portion of the original design of the NTF wind tunnel.  In order to maintain constant pressure in the tunnel while injecting liquid nitrogen, gaseous nitrogen is vented off at the same rate through a vent stack. Recently, ASE performed an upgrade to the original gaseous nitrogen vent stack by incorporating new exhaust fans, burners and ductwork to the existing vent system along with new controls.  This new duct burner concept was developed to overcome the negative buoyancy of the cold nitrogen exhaust and to avoid potential problems associated with exhaust plume touchdown.