HIPLATE Experience - Phase 2

My second HIPLATE experiment took place between November 2005 and February 2006. It wasn't suppose to be that long of a test, but there was an accident that put a big delay in testing. For this test I don't have any pictures of us preparing the model so I'll start with a picture of the model mounted in the tunnel.

HIPLATE mounted in the tunnel (it makes up the top surface in the picture) for my second test in Memphis.

I've pointed out the "very hot lights" because there is a good story about those. I think it actually occurred during my first time in Memphis, but will tell it now anyway. Basically I was working on installing some stuff in the HIPLATE while it was mounted in the tunnel. I kept smelling smoke so I stuck my head out of the test section and asked if anything was burning. However when it didn't smell like smoke outside I realized it had to be in the tunnel...I looked down at my leg to find out it was on fire! I attempted to put it out for awhile until Eric said "Brian we are in a water tunnel...go down to where there is water and put your leg in it." Good advice...after that I also burned my shoe.

In the picture above I also labeled the two "stupid struts" because they were the bane of my existence during this test. Basically we spent a lot of time designing and building these things (Eric did most of the work), only to have then screw up the flow and thus screw up our measurements. Below is a nice picture of one of them...they are pretty, but useless. the picture below that I believe is from me working on these struts...Bondoing, grinding, sanding, etc in a 80+ degree, 99% humidity dark tunnel.

The strut we mounted on the model and some laser light coming out of the model for a different measurement.

A good picture (not sure who took this one) of me working in the tunnel...amazing how dark it can look in there.

So after about a month of work getting everything setup we were finally ready to start collecting data. Then one day Eric and I were up by the test section and the entire facility lost power...pitch dark. Eric and I waited for a few minutes, but no one came to find us. So I decided I would go find where everyone was and see what happened. I went outside to find that one of the technician's, Tony, had been electrocuted. I've heard various stories since then about what exactly happened, but either way Tony survived though in pretty bad shape. He says he remembers it and that he wasn't electrocuted but the thing just exploded in his face...whatever Tony says is what I'm going to believe. He was even back to work within like a month, though he had to wear gloves since his hands were kind of blown to pieces in the accident.

After a month delay because of the investigation into what happened, Eric and I were ready to run our experiment. That allowed me to get to work on my electrical impedance measurements, which were the first instrumentation I ever designed, built, and used. Picture below is me at my little work station I built for my measurement. While the results turned out really well, I actually got half way through the experiment and figured out I screwed something up and had to redo everything...oops. I thought I was going to be fired or Eric was going to kill me, but actually everyone was really understanding.

Me (right) with my custom made instrumentation (left).

We then got to work going through our test matrix (plus doing a little extra that we weren't suppose to do, which turned out to be the most interesting find from all the HIPLATE experiments). Below are pictures from the two sides of the tunnel. I was always on the electrical impedance measurements (and communication with the tunnel control room), Eric was on the bubble cameras (and project manager), random person (in the picture its Keary) on the shear stress sensors, and quite often Marc was down there advising.

Typical team during testing; (left to right) Marc (advising/helping), Keary (shear stress), me (electrodes), and Eric (bubble camera/project manager).

Once the test was over we came back to Ann Arbor and began processing data and preparing for the next HIPLATE experiment, which I would be the project manager for...yikes!

Me back at my office in Ann Arbor processing my electrode data and preparing for the next experiment.