Several research institutes, aerospace companies perform routine wind tunnel testing hypersonic regimes. Gas turbine for better power generation and combustion study and control, evaluation of flame front propagation during combustion are some other areas where this technology will be very applicable. Industrial process control in harsh high temperature conditions such as petroleum refineries are other potential applications. This sensor may also serve as a platform technology with a potential impact on a broad application spectrum that ranges from fundamental scientific research, biomedical applications, etc.
Skin friction and pressure measurement for hypersonic flow conditions will enable NASA ATP facilities to precise stress measurement under harsh conditioned, which is currently not possible. This capability provides scientific value and poses significant commercial gain to NASA ATP by means of providing aerodynamic design and testing opportunity to the aerospace industry. Specific NASA ATP facilities that will benefit from precise skin friction instrumentation for aerodynamic performance estimation are, Aerothermodynamic Laboratories Facilities (31-inch Mach 10 Air, 20-inch Mach 6 Air , 20-inch Mach 6 CF4, and the 12-inch Mach 6 Air) to enable studies of aerodynamic performance of hypersonic vehicle components. In addition to the hypersonic testing at LaRC, the proposed innovation is also applicable to some of NASA Glenn Research Center's Propulsion System Laboratories. Overall, NASA and the aerospace industry stand to significantly benefit via better aerodynamic design and higher efficiency/ lower drag at lower cost.
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