Preliminary Results from the Riverside Research Plasma-Materials Interaction Experiment

Hypersonic vehicles are often exposed to extreme environments where heat fluxes to the vehicle’s surface can pose several challenges for the integrity of the shielding material. At hypersonic speeds the temperature surrounding the vessel can exceed 3000 °C and the local environment becomes partially ionized. Under these conditions oxidation effects become a significant concern. Despite the importance of understanding the role oxygen plays for materials testing, facilities capable of creating controlled oxygen plasma with sufficient plasma and material diagnostics and that can achieve sample temperatures of interest (i.e., ℃) are scarce. Recently, our team began to develop a facility capable of heating small material samples to high temperatures in a controlled cold gas environment. Compact samples (i.e., ) are heated to °C using a simple heating element. The heated sample is exposed to gas mixtures of various known concentrations and operating pressures to study oxidation effects in a controlled environment. The current suite of diagnostics available to our laboratory can measure electromagnetic properties of the heated samples in the X band (8 – 12 GHz) and mid infrared (IR) range ( THz) as well as monitor global environment characteristics. Here we present an update on the progress of this facility and preliminary results of materials characterization after a controlled gas exposure to a heated sample. Planned plasma source and diagnostic upgrades are also shown.