Pressure-Sensitive Paint Measurement at Low-speeds and in Special Environments

Abstract

The development of pressure distribution measurement using Pressure-Sensitive Paint technique was supported by the "Research and Development of Thermo-Fluid Sensing Technology Using Functional Molecular Sensors" funded by the Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology from 1999 to 2003. This project established the foundation of PSP research in Japan. Since then, PSP has been applied not only to the aerospace field but also to various other fields. On the other hand, new and significant challenges have arisen, such as the development of technology for non-intrusive and quantitative measurement of micro areas in MEMS devices and the measurement of high-precision small pressure changes in the low-speed range in the automotive industry. Furthermore, there has been a demand for measurement under special environments, such as for application to the development of an airplane that can fly on Mars, where the atmospheric density is about 1/100 that of the Earth. This paper describes some of the research and development activities conducted by the authors from 2004 to 2015 to solve these problems.