Development of Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) for Low Speed Wind Tunnel Testing

This project will aim to extend the useable range of the pressure measurement technique, Pressure-Sensitive Paint (PSP), in low-speed wind tunnel facilities. There is currently a shift in measurement approach due to the lack of availability of hardware and the implications for measurements at low speeds are not well understood. This project will aim to understand those limitations and investigate ways to mitigate them and provide areas where other gains could be made.

In order to achieve the above aims, specific tasks within the project are:
- Statistically investigate a full uncertainty source budget to highlight areas for investigation
- Implement a precise and accurate calibration chamber to benchmark approaches and produce expectations of performance
- Implement PSP tests in UoM wind tunnel facilities to demonstrate expected performance
- Develop PSP implementation strategies and technologies (bespoke lighting and camera systems) and compare to industry standard
- Explore and identify cheaper wind-tunnel model designs in the absence of pressure taps
- Streamline the validation of CFD and FEA results with wind-tunnel surface pressure data

Novel areas of investigation are:
- developing methods of limiting model motion and vibration on PSP results by utilizing digital image correlation to map surface pressure in-situ
- developing a miniature two-pulse, inter-camera PSP measurement system using machine vision cameras applicable to on-boar measurements in challenging environments
- investigating the possibility of embedding photoactive PSP chemicals in 3D printer material to enable rapid prototyping of fully instrumented wind tunnel models