| Summary: | The influence of carbon contamination on a range of synthetic air and pure nitrogen shock tube experiments conducted in Oxford’s T6 Stalker Tunnel is investigated using a numerical model designed for thermochemically reacting flows. Experimental conditions range from 6 to 7 km/s with fill pressures between 18 and 100 Pa. The addition of carbon was found to significantly improve agreement between the numerical model and experimental data, especially after the non-equilibrium peak and during relaxation towards equilibrium. For the chosen thermochemistry set and test conditions, minimal affect on the chemical kinetics of the original test gas was found especially for the neutral species, with minor changes for ion and electron number densities. The performance of the chosen thermochemistry model in radiance regions corresponding to NO and non-equilibrium atomic oxygen was poor, with improvements also required for the parameters governing translational-vibrational relaxation.
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