A preliminary study on static pressure probe mobile measurement method for flow field in transonic wind tunnel

Abstract

The axial Mach number distribution of the core flow for model in a transonic wind tunnel is an important index to evaluate the performance of the flow field, which is usually measured by the centerline probe. In order to simulate the incoming flow characteristics without interference, the probe will extend from the support section to the shrinkage section, so the probe usually must has longer inches, more static pressure measuring points and smaller blockage requirements. In order to study the influence of the points of the centerline probe on the uniformity distribution of flow field, a new static pressure probe is designed, which is smaller and shorter than the centerline probe. On the basis of the stability of the flow field, the Mach number distribution of the flow field measured by the static pressure probe which is driven by the moving measuring mechanism. The characteristics of the measured values are studied by wind tunnel test. The results show that: when Ma ≤ 0.95, the overall distribution and value of Mach number obtained by the static pressure probe is basically the same as those obtained by the centerline probe, but some flow field details, which mainly shows that Mach number of the static pressure probe has smaller fluctuation, higher accuracy and better uniformity index.

Keywords

• transonic wind tunnel
• flow quality
• static pressure probe
• mobile measurement
• mach number distribution