22nd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Harrogate, UK, 28 August - 1st September, 2000
Paper ICAS 2000-3.3.4

PRESSURE SENSITIVE PAINTS: FROM LABORATORY TO WIND TUNNEL

Y. Mébarki
National Research Council, Canada

Keywords: pressure sensitive paints, psp, wind tunnel testing

A research program on Pressure Sensitive Paints (PSP) is underway at the Institute for Aerospace Research of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). The aim of this program, initiated in the IAR 1.5m x 1.5m Trisonic Blowdown Wind Tunnel is to provide the IAR facilities with an operational PSP technique which is reliable and accurate. The 1.5m pressurized facility poses numerous problems to the PSP technique, such as, pressure sensitivity above ambient pressure and the integrity of optical components subject to high pressure. Therefore, a comprehensive assessment of the PSP system is needed before it is used in a particular facility. This paper presents a description of the IAR laboratory designed to achieve this evaluation. Comparisons of paint performances are given for 5 PSP films all based on a PtFPP porphyrin compound. An example of wind tunnel test preparation on an advanced supercritical transport wing is detailed in the second part of the paper. The effect of the 5 different PSP coatings on the flow at cruise Mach number M=0.74 and three

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