Performance Characteristics of a Huels-Type Arc Heater Operating on Hydrogen,Helium,or Air.

摘要

The performance characteristics of a scale 0.5 Huels-type arc heater were determined operating on hydrogen, helium, or air. Data were acquired on hydrogen at pressures from 10 to 50 atm, on helium from 25 to 100 atm, and on air from 10 to 100 atm. All three gases were tested at three arc current levels (240, 320, and 400 A) using the same basic arc heater. The hydrogen enthalpies were five to seven times those of air, and the helium enthalpies were 41% to 69% higher than air. Prediction codes for scaling hydrogen and helium arc heaters to larger scale were developed from a similar code for air which was shown to accurately predict the performance of the present AEDC Dust Erosion Tunnel (N = 1.73) arc heater.