Oxidation induced emissivity variations of the Haynes 25 alloy at high temperatures

Abstract

Haynes 25 alloy is used in the design of propulsion systems for spacecrafts and it can constitute a space debris at the end of life of the mission. All the thruster combustion chambers and nozzles are manufactured with Haynes 25 alloy and the thrusters used storable monopropellant hydrazine. During the atmospheric reentry of thruster pieces at high velocity, the Haynes 25 alloy is submitted to high temperatures in an extreme environment with atomic oxygen. This is why the high temperature oxidation of Haynes 25 was studied, in air plasma conditions in the temperature range 1000–1700 K. Moreover, as emissivity is an important parameter to know for the heat transfer, the spectral directional emissivity was measured on several samples surfaces: pristine, pre-oxidized in air plasma and in situ oxidized in air. The high temperature oxidation of Haynes 25 is moderate up to 1500 K and above an important mass loss occurred up to 1700 K (around 40 mg/cm2), that is the determined melting temperature. The emissivity of pristine Haynes 25 is vey low, around 0.20 at 1350 K and it increases with oxidation up to 0.85–0.90 at 1600 K.