Single-shot temperature-and pressure-sensitive paint measurements on an unsteady helicopter blade

Unsteady pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) measurements were acquired on an articulated model helicopter rotor of 0.26 m diameter in edgewise flow to simulate forward flight conditions. The rotor was operated at advance ratios (free stream velocity normalized by hover tip speed) of 0.15 and 0.30 at a cycle-averaged tip chord Reynolds number of 1.1 x 10(5), with collective and longitudinal cyclic pitch inputs of 10 degrees and 2.5 degrees, respectively. A single-shot data acquisition technique allowed a camera to record the paint luminescence after a single pulse of high-energy laser excitation, yielding sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to avoid image averaging. Platinum tetra(pentafluorophenyl) porphyrin (PtTFPP) in a porous polymer/ceramic binder served as the PSP. To address errors caused by image blurring and temperature sensitivity, a previously reported motion deblurring algorithm was implemented and the temperature correction was made using temperature-sensitive paint measurements on a second rotor blade. Instantaneous, unsteady surface pressure maps at a rotation rate of 82 Hz captured different aerodynamic responses between the two sides of the rotor disk and were compared to the nominally steady hover case. Cycle-to-cycle variations in tip unsteadiness on the retreating blade were also observed, causing oblique pressure features which may be linked to three-dimensional stall.