Abstract
This paper describes a series of experiments carried out in a high-enthalpy stream of argon on materials that are known to sublime. The results confirm that an axisymmetric Teflon model ablates to a stable shape which is independent of the initial nose profile. The effect of changing the total enthalpy of the gas is simply to alter the recession rate of the nose. The experimental results show poor agreement with a simple theory which ignores the effects of mass transfer in the boundary layer.

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