Measuring temperature distribution on the surface of flying missiles

There are problems associated with flight of objects such as rockets after exceeding sound barrier. One of them is heating up their body during the flight, especially at low altitudes. Overheated surface of rocket leads to serious consequences, such as rapid destruction of material components of missile. It could cause an interference with target tracking signal if it is on the spectral range of missile optoelectronic detecting head. It can cause destruction of flying missile in extreme cases. In addition, temperature increase causes an increase of drag force of object what directly influences its ballistic parameters. The subject of the paper is to present a concept of experimental set-up to test the heating of missile body at flight. The set-up is based on a wind tunnel. Four missiles were selected for initial analysis in order to test some typical designs for significantly different flight velocities and aerodynamics. Boundary layer at flow around the surface, determining temperature field of missile, the local distribution of heat transfer coefficients on the sphere and exemplary distribution of temperature and pressure on the sphere during flow around, distribution of Nusselt numbers for different velocities of flow around roll, numerical model of rockets, distribution of Mach number, temperature field and velocity vectors are presented.