Heating Experiments of Silicon-based Heat-resistant Materials in High-enthalpy Flows and Its Optical Measurements

When a space vehicle reenters into the Earth's atmosphere, a strong shock wave is generated in front of the vehicle and it undergoes severe aerodynamic heating. In order to protect the capsule from the heating, the ablation method is known as a thermal protection system. In our laboratory, we focus on silicon carbides as silicon-based heat-resistant materials which have high density and wear resistance. The heating experiments using air plasmajets are performed systematically. In previous study, we measured the strong radiation on the test-piece surface, the weak radiation around the test piece temporally and spatially with Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) camera. Then, we measured the weak radiation around the test piece and analyzed its spatial-temporal distributions and mechanisms. In this study, heating experiments were conducted using ISAS / JAXA arc-heated wind tunnel under the almost same heating-rate conditions as well as those of the Gunma University’s micro-air plasmajets.