Plasma Wind Tunnel Investigation of European Ablators in Nitrogen/Methane Using Emission Spectroscopy

Table 1

Plasma test conditions C1 and C2.

(a)  

Overall facility conditions
Current	1006.7±2.3 [A]
Methane mass flow	87.15±0.07 [mg/s]
Nitrogen mass flow	10.036±0.008 [g/s]
Argon mass flow	1.47±0.002 [g/s]
Total mass flow	10.123±0.008 [g/s]
Ambient pressure	15.96±0.04 [hPa]

(b)  

Condition C1
𝑥-position	255±0.001 [mm]
Heat flux	1.4208±0.0031 [MW/m^2]
Pitot pressure	17.75±0.02 [hPa]

(c)  

Condition C2
𝑥-position	510±0.001 [mm]
Heat flux	0.3103±0.0028 [MW/m^2]
Pitot pressure	16.78±0.02 [hPa]

(d)  

Test condition	Heat flux/MW/m^2	Total pressure/hPa	Testing time/s
C1	1.42	17.8	25
C2	0.31	16.8	50

(e)  

Test condition	Free-stream Mach number/—	Maximum sample surface temperature/°C
C1	0.36–0.44	1873, 1834
C2	0.25–0.30	1164, 1145