Study on influence of PSP measurement system characteristics

The pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique as an optical method enables measurement of surface pressure distribution over a model and its measurement system plays an important role in this technique. In the present study, the fluorescent PSP is used and PSP measurement system is established by the authors. The influence of the measurement system characteristics on calibration curves is then explored through many PSP calibration experiments. With five camera apertures and two ultraviolet (UV) lamp powers, the original PSP calibration images and curves are presented in this paper. The experimental results demonstrated that: (1) the characteristics of the PSP measurement system have an important effect on the pressure measurement; (2) the 400-W UV lamp can provide adequate excitation photons to excite fluorescence molecules entering the energy transition and a larger charge-coupled device (CCD) aperture can be used to improve the signal-to-noise rate (SNR) of the CCD.