Parietal heat flux measurement in a nitrogen plasma jet

The local measurement of the net heat flux exchanged between a low-pressure plasma jet and a plate set along its flow direction is described. Manufactured and inserted in this plate are several flux gauges which have been calibrated by an original method based on the radial steepness of a Gaussian laser beam. These experimental results, when compared with information drawn from thermal boundary layer profiles, show the importance of the recombination term in the parietal energy equation.