The thermodynamic and transport prorerties of high-temperature air are found in closed form starting from approximate partition functions for the major components in air and neglecting all minor components. The compressibility, energy, entropy, the specific heats, the speed of sound, the coefficients of viscosity and of thermal conductivity, and the Prandtl numbers for air are tabulated from 500 degrees to 15,000 degrees K over a range of pressure from 0.0001 to 100 atmospheres. The enthalpy of air and the mol fractions of the major components of air can easily be found from the tabulated values for compressibility and energy. It is predicted that the Prandtl number for fully ionized air will become small compared to unity, the order of 0.01, and this implies that boundary layers in such flow will be very transparent to heat flux.

Results are presented for several numerical experiments using an analysis of the viscous radiating stagnation region shock layer and stagnation point heat transfer. A simple step model absorption coefficient, rationally constructed from existing quantum mechanical calculations, is shown to accurately predict shock layer nongray continuum radiative heat transfer in comparison to results obtained with detailed spectral absorption coefficients. Sensitivity of the heat transfer to uncertainties in gas radiative and transport properties is also examined, as well as the effect of artificially increased absorption in the boundary layer. (Author).