Phil Kreth, assistant professor, and Theron Price, a doctorate candidate, along with Non-Contact Technologies, LLC in Tullahoma have teamed up with Arnold Engineering Development Complex engineers to apply optical flow visualization to jet engine testing. UTSI utilizes their supersonic and hypersonic wind tunnels for optical diagnostics using one of the non-intrusive techniques of focused laser differential interferometry, or FLDI.

“With an FLDI system, you can measure the amplitude and frequency of disturbances in or around a plume. When aiming a laser through the plume, you’re able to capture the fluctuations in the density inside of the plume and can even estimate local turbulent velocity scales. By aiming the laser outside of the plume, you can capture the acoustics of the plume’s external flow,” said Theron Price, a doctorate candidate at UTSI.

A Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer, or STTR, was awarded through AFWERX to address the need at AEDC. After producing favorable results in Phase I, which explored measurement techniques that would be ideal for the harsh test cell environment, a Phase II project was awarded for continued work on a larger scale for two different measurement techniques.