IIT-K builds first HETTF

February 10, 2024

The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), has successfully developed and tested India’s first hypervelocity expansion tunnel test facility.
- An expansion tunnel is an aerodynamic (relating to the properties of moving air, and the interaction between the air and solid bodies moving through it) facility capable of generating high-energy test conditions with negligible or no ionisation.
- In these aerodynamic testing facilities, achieving high speeds for an aircraft is the goal.
Hypervelocity means very high velocity, say, over 3,000 metres per second.
India now joins the small group of nations that have this advanced hypersonic (speed more than five times than that of sound) testing capability.
The facility, called S2, will help the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) perform missions.
There are four major sections in the facility: a free piston driver, a compression tube, a shock or acceleration tube, and a test section with a vacuum system to generate hypersonic speeds.