Characterization of the Table-Top Shock Tunnel Facility Using Kapton Erosion Experiments and Direct Simulation Monte Carlo

We have used the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method to simulate a series of experiments in a new molecular beam based facility called the Table-Top Shock Tunnel (TTST). In order to characterize the flux in the TTST, samples of Kapton H were exposed to beams of high energy oxygen atoms and the resulting mass loss and surface morphology changes were studied. DSMC simulations show that experimentally observed changes in surface morphology at larger exposure distances are due to the presence of an increasingly diffuse shock layer that deflects incoming oxygen atoms. This joint experimental/computational study has characterized the TTST’s operation, and will allow future work to validate a new air-carbon ablation model by simulating TTST experiments on vitreous carbon.[1]