Simultaneous Nitric Oxide/Atomic Oxygen Laser-Induced Fluorescence in an Arcjet Facility

Simultaneous nitric-oxide and atomic-oxygen laser-induced-fluorescence experiments were performed in the Hypersonic Materials Environmental Test System facility at the NASA Langley Research Center. The data serve as an experimental database for validation for chemical and thermal nonequilibrium models used in hypersonic flows. Measurements were taken over a wide range of stagnation enthalpies (6.7-18.5 MJ/kg) using an Earth atmosphere simulant with a composition of 75% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 5% argon (by volume). These are the first simultaneous measurements of nitric-oxide and atomic-oxygen laser-induced fluorescence to be reported in literature for the Hypersonic Materials Environmental Test System facility. The maximum atomic-oxygen laser-induced-fluorescence mean signal intensity was observed at a stagnation enthalpy of approximately 12 MJ/kg, whereas the maximum nitric-oxide laser-induced-fluorescence mean signal intensity was observed at a stagnation enthalpy of 6.7 MJ/kg. The experimental results were compared to a fluorescence model that assumes equilibrium conditions in the plenum and frozen chemistry in an isentropic nozzle expansion (Mach 5). The equilibrium calculations were performed using CANTERA v2.1.1 with 16 species. The fluorescence model captured the correlation in mean atomic-oxygen laser-induced-fluorescence and nitric-oxide laser-induced-fluorescence signal intensities over a large range of stagnation enthalpies tested. The agreement between equilibrium calculations and the experimental laser-induced fluorescence signals was better for nitric oxide than atomic oxygen. Very weak correlations between single-shot atomic-oxygen laser-induced-fluorescence and nitric-oxide laser-induced-fluorescence intensities were observed in the experiments at all of the stagnation enthalpy conditions. It was found that the overall magnitude of nitric-oxide laser-induced-fluorescence fluctuations was much larger than atomic-oxygen laser-induced-fluorescence fluctuations.