Fluorescence Imaging of Rotational and Vibrational Temperature in a Shock Tunnel Nozzle Flow

Two-dimensional rotational and vibrational temperature measurements were made at the nozzle exit of a free-piston shock tunnel using planar laser-induced fluorescence. The Mach 7 flow consisted predominantly of nitrogen with a trace quantity of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide was employed as the probe species and was excited at 225 nm. Nonuniformities in the distribution of nitric oxide in the test gas were observed and were concluded to be due to contamination of the test gas by driver gas or cold test gas.The nozzle-exit rotational temperature was measured and is in reasonable agreement with computational modeling. Nonlinearities in the detection system were responsible for systematic errors in the measurements. The vibrational temperature was measured to be constant with distance from the nozzle exit, indicating it had frozen during the nozzle expansion.