Continued Characterization and Improvements to an Inductively Coupled Plasma Jet for Thermal Protection System Pre-Screening

An inductively coupled plasma (ICP) torch was used to generate a high-temperature, low-speed plasma jet at atmospheric pressure. This ICP jet is typically used to expose test articles to high temperatures as experienced on the surface of hypersonic aircraft. In pursuit of reaching thermal conditions representative of orbital re-entry, upgrades were performed to increase the ICP torch’s power, which required additional hardware to prevent undesired electrical interactions with measurement instruments. Measurements of the stagnation-point heat flux along the jet’s centerline are presented, which indicate that cold-wall heat fluxes in excess of 100 W/cm2 can be reached -- nearly twice what the facility could previously produce. A few high-temperature materials were tested in support of the development of a new hypersonic flight vehicle (the HyperSat), including flexible materials for a deployable heat shield.