It is presently used to test concepts for expansion tube developments and to test new instrumentation concepts. This is a pilot expansion tube which has been designed and constructed to test concepts for the larger X3 tube. One of the new features of this machine is the compound-piston driver which consists of a light outer piston and a heavier inner piston. The latter separates from the outer piston after some initial compression and the inner piston continues down a smaller diameter compression tube to complete the driver compression process. This is a larger super-orbital expansion tube which is currently still in the design phase.
Some parts are currenlty being manufactured.
This is a small shock tunnel with a fixed driver in which initiation of a shot is made by piercing the primary diaphragm. It is presently being used to investigate contoured nozzle design for larger facilities. The test section has good optical access with four 100 mm diameter quartz windows. This is a small tube of about 5 m in length and 75 mm internal diameter which is being used to investigate detonation phenomena. This is a small supersonic blowdown wind tunnel which is equipped currently with Mach 3 nozzles.