Quality of a high-enthalpy flow upon electric-arc heating of air in a facility for investigating supersonic combustion

The quality of a high-enthalpy air flow is considered in terms of simulating full-scale flow parameters in studying supersonic combustion. It is shown that the plasmatron with gas-vortex stabilization of the arc, which was used in experiments, can provide, in a wide range of pressures and temperatures, a level of specific erosion of electrodes equal to 10$^{-7}$–10$^{-9}$ kg/C and a concentration of nitric oxide lower than 0.06%, which has almost no effect on the flow structure and basic characteristics of ignition and combustion processes.