Probe and method for simultaneous measurements of 'true' instantaneous temperature and three velocity components in turbulent flow

In the measurement of turbulent flows the need has always existed to obtain correct instantaneous values of temperature and three components of velocity at a particular point. Many proposed lengthy approximate correction methods that attempt to account for 'nonlinear' effects (cross contamination between different quantities) in hot-wire measurements cannot be considered satisfactory. The availability of powerful digital computers for theoretical and experimental studies has placed pressure on experimentalists to develop better probes and methods. This paper attempts to answer these pressures by describing the development of a special four-wire probe and a method of processing the obtained signals. The use of four 0.625-microm-diam sensors makes the probe practically interference free. The processing method is based on the simultaneous solution of four complete nonlinear response equations for the sensors, yielding in principle exact instantaneous values of velocity components and temperature. Additional features of the processing method include: instantaneous full correction for tunnel free stream velocity and temperature fluctuations, first-order correction for dc drifts of the signals during data acquisition, subtraction of all 60-Hz related noise, and correction for streamwise displacement of sensors based on instantaneous streamwise velocity.