Optical Mach Probe

Michigan Aerospace Corporation (MAC) proposes to advance NASA's nonintrusive spatially- and temporally-resolved Interferometric Rayleigh Scattering (IRS) technology to perform additional multiple properties measurements in high-speed flows. In particular, an instantaneous nonintrusive Optical Mach Probe (OMP) to obtain the Mach number and the flow angularity among the flow density, translational temperature, and the bulk velocity is proposed. Other turbulence-specific parameters, such as components of the stress and heat flux tensors, the mean and fluctuations of properties are obtained from these measurements. During Phase I of this effort, the optical, mechanical, electrical, and software engineering models of the instrument will be developed for the specific application. The prototype development and preliminary tests to demonstrate the technique could be performed in Phase II at NASA through the adaptation of NASA's existing technologies. This proposal is in response to the NASA SBIR Phase I, Topic: A4 Aeronautics Test Technologies, Subtopic: A4.01 Ground Test Techniques and Measurement Technology. The objective is to develop and demonstrate nonintrusive measurement technologies to increase techniques' capabilities and characterize ground test facility flow performance in terms of flow quality, turbulence intensity, and Mach number measured up to and including hypersonic speed regimes. More »