Radiative cooling in shock-heated hydrogen-helium plasmas

Axial and off-axis radiative cooling of cylindrical shock-heated hydrogen-helium plasmas is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The coupled fluid dynamic-radiative transfer equations are solved by a combination of approximation techniques aimed at simplifying the computation of the flux divergence term, namely, the quasi-isothermal approximation and the exponential approximation developed for the solid angle integration. The accuracy of the approximation schemes has been assessed and found acceptable for applying the methods to the rapid computation of the radiatively coupled flow problem. Radiative cooling experiments were conducted in a 6-inch annular arc accelerator shock tube (ANAA) for an initial pressure of 1 torr and shock speeds from 35 to 45 Km/sec. The results indicate that the lateral cooling is small compared with the axial cooling, and that better agreement is achieved between the data and the theoretical results by inclusion of the lateral temperature gradient.