Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 April 2006
An experimental study of the flow past a thin finite length plate in a supersonic low density stream is reported. The paper discusses the corrections that are necessary for surface pressures measured under rarefied conditions. It is shown that the recent method of ‘orifice’ corrections due to Harbour & Bienkowski is versatile and reliable to use for both cold wall and insulated wall measurements. For the conditions of the experiment, the flow over the plate was found to be dominated by both leading-edge and trailing-edge interactions.