Observation of an Ablating Surface in Expansion Tunnel Flow

Experimental Characterization of Ablation Species in an Air Plasma Ablating Boundary Layer

“…Understanding the physics of the interactions between plasmas and ablating materials is helpful for more accurate design and performance predictions, and can lead to a decrease in shield mass and a safer thermal protection system. Previous studies have investigated the coupling between atmospheric plasma flows and ablating materials [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]; the current work seeks to extend these studies to provide new data at higher heat fluxes and surface temperatures. The current study employs emission spectroscopy and visual imaging diagnostics to investigate the boundary layer of an ablating material in the high enthalpy flow of an inductively coupled plasma torch.…”

Survey of high-enthalpy shock facilities in the perspective of radiation and chemical kinetics investigations

“…Since X2 can produce flows characteristics of super-orbital Earth entry conditions, it has also been used for simulating the Hayabusa [70] and Stardust [71] probe re-entries in the purpose of radiation investigation. This facility has been also used for investigating ablation-radiation coupling over carbonaceous test models [71][72][73], flow over a toroidal ballute [74], and scramjet testing [75,76].…”

On the Current Limits of Simulating Gas Giant Entry Flows in an Expansion Tube

“…At the expense of test time, total enthalpy and total pressure are added to the flow without the flow dissociation that would occur in a shock tunnel. 18 The X2 expansion tube at the University of Queensland has been used extensively to simulate and measure radiating test flows for several planetary bodies in the solar system, including Earth, Mars, Titan, and Venus, [20][21][22][23][24][25][26] at velocities ranging from 6 -12 km/s. However, when considering simulating entries into the gas giant planets in the outer reaches of the solar system, velocities range from 20 -50 km/s, pushing the performance envelope limits of expansion tubes as they are currently configured, and requiring a firm understanding of the performance trends of the facilities to create useful test conditions.…”