Hot-wire probe design and calibration for high-speed, high-temperature flows

Abstract

Abstract The use of hot-wire anemometry in high-speed, high-temperature flows with large temperature variations presents additional challenges compared with measurements in an incompressible flow at a nearly constant temperature. This work focuses on the use of hot-wires under conditions with a flow velocity of up to 455 m s − 1 , temperatures up to 650 K , and mean temperature variations of approximately 100 K . This research was motivated by experiments simulating some of the conditions of the high-pressure turbine inlet region of a gas-turbine engine. Two separate factors in this work facilitated hot-wire measurements under the above conditions. The first was the design of a custom hot-wire probe and sensor attachment procedure. The design used high-temperature materials capable of meeting the structural requirements of high-speed flow. The second objective was the development of a new temperature compensation method to provide low bias errors over a large range of gas temperatures and Mach numbers. The results demonstrate that both probe and sensor were able to operate at high Mach number and high-temperatures for several days without issue. Mean velocity results are compared with pneumatic probe measurements, and are found to be within the expected range of uncertainty.