Advanced Measurement Techniques in Aerodynamics

Abstract

This issue of Measurement Science and Technology contains a special feature section with selected papers from the EWA International workshop on Advanced Measurement Techniques in Aerodynamics, which was held at the Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, 31 March–1 April 2008. The workshop was funded by the European Windtunnel Association (EWA, www.eu-ewa.aero), which is an EU-funded network established in 2004 under the European Sixth Framework Programme with the goal of integrating and standardizing the different capabilities of European wind tunnels and related flow measurement techniques.The workshop was organized with the objective of stimulating discussion among leading European universities, research institutes and industry in the field of advanced aerodynamics measurement techniques, in order to provide a transfer of new ideas from upstream research centres to wind tunnel operators and industrial users. Non-intrusive flow diagnostic techniques nowadays offer renewed capabilities for industrial wind-tunnel applications. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) plays a leading role for particular applications (unsteady and complex flows, rotorcraft aerodynamics, turbulent separated flows) and can provide solutions that cannot be achieved with conventional techniques (e.g. in the analysis of vortex flows). This formed the main motivation to revise the state-of-the-art of PIV along with other non-intrusive optical techniques such as PSP, DGV and BOS.The two-day workshop contained sessions dedicated to several specific topics: rotorcraft aerodynamics applications; state-of-the-art of high-speed PIV and configurations for time-resolved measurements; three-dimensional PIV; non-intrusive load characterization by PSP and PIV. The main conclusion emerging from the closing discussion was that the new capabilities offered by time-resolved PIV are of great scientific and industrial interest for application to unsteady flows and in particular to the determination of unsteady aerodynamic forces and loads. We believe that this workshop provided a useful framework facilitating the transfer of new ideas from developer to the user communities. At the same time the workshop provided the upstream research community with important feedback about the areas of relevance for industrial aerodynamics.