AIR ARC SIMULATION OF HYPERSONIC ENVIRONMENTS

For the past five years the air arc, or plasma generator, has found an important use in the laboratory simulation of environments encountered by vehicles flying at hypersonic velocities through the atmosphere. One purpose of this paper is to outline the re-entry requirements of ballistic, satellite, glide and space vehicles and to show the usefulness of various air arc test configurations in providing the appropriate simulation of flight conditions. To illustrate the capabilities of current arc facilities, the results of recent development studies with a hypersonic wind tunnel are presented. Measured expanded flow properties are discussed in terms of effective area ratio, boundary layer growth and state of the gas.