Numerical investigation of a partially ionized air flow in a plasma wind tunnel

Abstract

The program system SINA (Sequential Iterative Non-equilibrium Algorithm) has been developed for high enthalpy flows in plasma wind tunnels. SINA consists of a flow field solver and a thermo-chemica l non equilibrium solver for air. Also, an algebraic turbulence model was implemented in the program system SINA to cope with experimental observations. For this article presented here, SINA was used for the simulation of the air composed partially ionized plasma jet and the flow around a water cooled probe of different catalytic activities. The basic features of the methods, results gained by the simulations and the comparison with experimental and theoretical investigations are presented here. The numerical investigation is an important feature to understand the physical phenomena and for the prediction of the behaviour of tested TPS (thermal protection systems) in the plasma wind tunnel.