Abstract
In order to simulate the flight conditions in an ionosphere and to investigate a low density, high enthalpy, high speed flow with chemical reaction, a low density plasma jet wind tunnel has been constructed at the Department of Aeronautical Engineering of Kyoto University. Performance tests have been carried out by nitrogen and argon plasma jets. It is seen from the performance tests that the over-all Mach number and Reynolds number performance of this wind tunnel lies in the transition region. And it is shown that our plasma jet wind tunnel satisfies the conditions of a neutral dominated continuum flow in the aerodynamic flow regimes with which we are concerned in the ionosphere.
