Relative Operating Capabilities of Selected Electric-Arc Reentry Environment Simulators.

摘要

Stanford Research Institute has been engaged by National Aeronautics and Space Administration to determine the feasibility of developing meaningful standard evaluation procedures for testing ablating materials used in reentry- type thermal protection systems. This involves definition of the extent to which realistic environmental conditions are simulated by existing test devices, initiation of comparative tests on specific materials in several of these devices, and correlation and analysis of the results to determine the feasibility of developing a standardized test. A more detailed description of the program is contained in Quarterly Progress Report No. 1. In order to undertake these comparative tests it is necessary to know the relative capabilities of the various test facilities. This report describes the procedure used to obtain and evaluate this information and presents the indicated operating envelopes for the organizations participating in the round-robin ablation program.