Development and application of pressure sensitive paint system in 2.4m transonic wind tunnel

In recent decades,PSP (Pressure Sensitive Paint )measurement technique has been improved continuously and applied to engineering wind tunnel testing of two meter scale in many aerodynamic test institutions in the world gradually,for model surface pressure measure-ment,flow visualization on model surface and CFD result validation.A binary PSP measurement system with multi light sources and CCD cameras has been established in the 2.4m transonic wind tunnel,and the many problems affecting measurement accuracy and reliability in large intermittent transonic wind tunnel tests have been solved,such as temperature changing on mod-el surface,illumination uniformity and intensity changing,model vibration,as well as test data correction,spraying and coating calibration,and so on.Meanwhile it has been employed to the surface pressure distribution measurement tests of the large aircraft model and the NASA delta wing model.Test results indicate that PSP coating has little influence on model surface pressure distribution.The difference of the root mean square of Cp between PSP and conventional pressure taps is below 0.03 under the test conditions with Mach numbers ranging from 0.4 to 1.2 and angles of attack varying from -4°to 4°,which is equal to the measurements accuracy of continu-ous transonic wind tunnel of the same scale abroad.In a word,the new PSP system and tech-nique application can provide a new advanced measurement method for the configuration optimum design of flight vehicles and aerodynamics research.