Unsteady pressure-sensitive paint measurement based on the heterodyne method using low frame rate camera.

The pressure-sensitive paint technique based on the heterodyne method was proposed for the precise pressure measurement of unsteady flow fields. This measurement is realized by detecting the beat signal that results from interference between a modulating illumination light source and a pressure fluctuation. The beat signal is captured by a camera with a considerably lower frame rate than the frequency of the pressure fluctuation. By carefully adjusting the frequency of the light and the camera frame rate, the signal at the frequency of interest is detected, while the noise signals at other frequencies are eliminated. To demonstrate the proposed method, we measured the pressure fluctuations in a resonance tube at the fundamental, second, and third harmonics. The pressure fluctuation distributions were successfully obtained and were consistent with measurements from a pressure transducer. The proposed method is a useful technique for measuring unsteady phenomena.