Interaction between Shock Wave and Boundary Layer in Nonequilibrium Hypersonic Rarefied Flow : 5th Report, Nonequilibrium of Rotational Temperature in Flow over Flat Plate

An experimental study of the interaction between a shock wave and a boundary layer over a flat plate with a sharp leading edge in hypersonic rarefied gas flow is presented. Experiments in a low-density wind tunnel using an electron beam probe were conducted at the Shock Wave Laboratory, RWTH Aachen, Germany. Rotational temperatures for stagnation temperatures of T_0=670〜1000K and Kn=0.024〜0.028 based on a reference length of 0.05m were calculated using Muntz's method and Robben and Talbot's method. The domain of quasi two-dimensional flow over the plate was determined from three-dimensional rotational temperature measurements. Nonequilibrium between translational and rotational temperatures was observed near the leading edge, and the experimental rotational relaxation length explains the rotational collision number of 2〜4.