Recent Improvements in Pressure-Sensitive Paint Measurement Accuracy at Boeing

A review of some current research on pressure sensitive paint and thermographic phosphor techniques

“…The technology is based on a molecular sensor with sensitivity to the local oxygen concentration, which is related to the local pressure distribution (3) . PSP technology has been applied to transonic, supersonic and hypersonic flows and its application has been extended to low speed flows (5,6) . At University of Manchester, the Aero-Physics and Measurement Technology (APMT) Laboratory has developed intensity-based and lifetime-based measurement imaging systems to simultaneously measure pressure and temperature from the luminescent emission or decay respectively of PtTFPP and Ruthenium based organic formulations using mainly sol-gel binders (24,25) .…”

“…. (5) The derivative of Equation (5) with respect to B is dθ/dB = -(1/(1+B) 2 ), hence dθ = {(-B)/(h(1+B) 2 )}dh. Assuming a linear approximation, the derivative terms become finite differences and the change in surface temperature is:…”

“…Ageing and drift were other potential sources of error but all tests were completed within few hours. Ageing is mainly due to photo-degradation of the coatings, and previous studies have shown that the ageing time is of the order days, and therefore it does not make calibration difficult (5,6,41,(46)(47)(48) . The proposed system provided a temperature correction capability.…”

“…Pressure-Sensitive Paint and Thermographic Phosphor techniques provide a way to obtain simple, inexpensive, full-field mapping of pressure and temperature on surfaces with high spatial resolution both qualitatively and quantitatively. PSP and TP techniques have been used in turbine design and for aircraft, helicopter and motor vehicle wind tunnel tests (3)(4)(5)(6) .…”