Design of a material ablation test stand

A test stand is being designed to measure the ablation rate and threshold o f EML related materials. A plasma armature is used to ablate the surface of the test material. The heat flux and exposure time are controlled by setti ng the armature current, augmentation current, and backfill gas pressure. A blation parameters may be determined hg measuring the free are's velocity u nder various material surface heat toads. A completely. closed-form solutio n has been developed to help quantify ablation parameters more accurately a nd efficiently. An algorithm is proposed for computing operating parameters . Recommendations for technical specifications of the test stand are provid ed.