Riverside Research Develops New Capabilities to Cost-effectively Characterize Hypersonic Materials in Extreme Environments
The Plasma Research Team at Riverside Research is developing a suite of diagnostics to study plasma-material interactions, such as oxidation effects, in a controlled environment to improve our understanding of how exposure to extreme environments impacts materials used on hypersonic vehicles.
Hypersonic vehicles are often exposed to extreme environments in which 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 platform 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 in materials testing, facilities capable of creating controlled oxygen plasmas with sufficient plasma and material diagnostics that can achieve sample temperatures of interest (i.e., >1800°C) are scarce.
Current methods for testing samples under extreme plasma conditions are commonly executed at large arc jet laboratories. While these facilities achieve extreme environments, the gas composition is not easily controlled or changed, there are relatively few of these complexes in the country, and they can be expensive to operate. This makes testing samples under extreme conditions a long and costly process.
The Plasma Team recently added capabilities to the Riverside Research Beavercreek, Ohio, facility to enable heating small material samples to high temperatures in a controlled cold gas environment. Compact samples (i.e., 75 mm × 75 mm × 5 mm) are heated to ~2000°C using a simple heating element. The heated sample is exposed to gas mixtures of known concentrations and operating pressures to study oxidation effects in a controlled environment.
The current suite of diagnostics in our laboratory can measure electromagnetic properties of the heated samples in the X band (8 – 12 GHz) and mid infrared (IR) range (66 – 230 THz) as well as monitor global environment characteristics.
Planned upgrades in 2025 will expand the team’s capabilities and enable them to characterize plasma-material interactions. The Plasma-Materials Experiment at Riverside Research will heat samples to temperatures ≥1800°C while exposing them to gases and reactive plasmas of known compositions. The suite of diagnostics available for this experiment, and those that are planned to be added, will monitor sample temperature with an IR camera, measure reactive species compositions during plasma-material interactions with optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and two-photon absorption laser-induced fluorescence (TALIF) techniques, monitor global chamber gas compositions with a residual gas analyzer (RGA), and measure dielectric properties of the sample-under-test in mid infrared and X-band frequencies with a vector network analyzer (VNA).
Other research areas enabled by these upgrades include:
- Extreme environment material testing (e.g., space, hypersonics, directed energy weapons, etc.)
- High-power radio frequency (RF) and laser material interactions
To learn more about the work of the Riverside Research Plasma Team, visit Riverside Research at GEOINT 2025 at booth 2031 or reach out to us today.