Measurements of heat transfer to a flat plate in a dissociated high-enthalpy laminar air flow

Heat-transfer rates from a non-equilibrium hypersonic air flow to flat plates at zero and 12° incidence have been measured in a free piston shock tunnel at stagnation enthalpy levels up to 51 MJ kg. Nozzle flow conditions resulted in test section velocities up to 8·1 km 8 and in an experimental regime in which the free stream was chemically frozen and the flat-plate boundary layer was laminar. Estimates of the gas-phase and surface-reaction Damkohler numbers have been made and the heat-transfer results are discussed in this context. At the highest test-section densities non-equilibrium endothermic gas phase reactions involving oxygen atoms in the boundary layer are suggested as a possible mechanism for the observed low heattransfer rates