Abstract
When a space vehicle reenters the Earth's atmosphere, strong shock wave is formed in front of the vehicle and it is exposed to severe aerodynamic heating. There are an ablation method to protect the vehicle from such heating. But the behavior and characteristics of materials during ablation have not been clarified thoroughly. In our laboratory, ablation experiments of silicon carbide (SiC) as heat-resistance material have been performed systematically in an air plasma freejet. In this study, in order to investigate the SiC ablations, radiation measurements with narrow band-pass filters and video cameras were performed. As a result, estimated temperature of the SiC ablations was about 2,600K at 7.0mm position from nozzle exit on flow axis.
