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Optics and Lasers in Engineering 44 (2006) 261281

Infrared thermography: An optical method in heat transfer and uid ow visualisation

T. Astarita, G. Cardone, G.M. Carlomagno
` Universita degli studi di Napoli Federico II, Dipartimento di Energetica Termouidodinamica Applicata e Condizionamenti Ambientali, DETEC, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Napoli, Italy Available online 23 May 2005

Abstract This paper deals with the evolution of infrared thermography into a powerful optical method to measure wall convective heat uxes as well as to investigate the surface ow eld behaviour over complex geometries. The most common heat-ux sensors, which are normally used for the measurements of convective heat transfer coefcients, are critically reviewed. Since the infrared scanning radiometer leads to the detection of numerous surface temperatures, its use allows taking into account the effects due to tangential conduction along the sensor; different operating methods together with their implementations are discussed. Finally, the capability of infrared thermography to deal with three complex uid ow congurations is analysed. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Heat-ux sensors; Convective heat transfer; Surface ow visualisation; Infrared thermography

1. Introduction Usually, measuring convective heat uxes requires both a sensor (with its corresponding thermal model) and some temperature measurements. In the ordinary techniques [16], where temperature is measured by thermocouples, resistance

Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 081 768 3389; fax: +39 081 239 0364.

E-mail address: astarita@unina.it (T. Astarita). 0143-8166/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.optlaseng.2005.04.006

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temperature detectors or pyrometers, each transducer yields either the heat ux at a single point, or the space-averaged one; hence, in terms of spatial resolution, the sensor itself can be considered as zero-dimensional. This constraint makes experimental measurements particularly troublesome whenever temperature, and/ or heat ux, elds exhibit spatial variations. As long as the uid is transparent to the employed infrared band, the infrared scanning radiometer (IRSR) constitutes a true two-dimensional temperature transducer since it allows the performance of accurate measurement of surface temperature maps even in the presence of relatively high spatial temperature variations. Correspondingly, the heat-ux sensor may become two-dimensional as well. In particular, infrared thermography can be fruitfully employed to measure convective heat uxes, in both steady and transient techniques [79]. Within this context, IRSR can be intrinsically considered as a thin-lm sensor [5] because it generally measures skin temperatures. The thermal map obtained by means of currently available computerised thermographic systems is formed through a large amount of pixels (20300 K and more) so that IRSR can be practically regarded as a two-dimensional array of thin lms. However, unlike standard thin lms, which have a response time of the order of microseconds, the typical response time of IRSR is of the order of 101103 s. The use of IRSR as a temperature transducer in convective heat transfer measurement appears, from several points of view, advantageous if compared to standard transducers. In fact, as already mentioned, IRSR is fully two-dimensional; it permits the evaluation of errors due to tangential conduction and radiation, and it is non-intrusive. For example, the last characteristic allows to get rid of the conduction errors through the thermocouple or resistance temperature detector wires.

2. Heat-ux sensors Heat-ux sensors generally consist of plane slabs with a known thermal behaviour, whose temperature is to be measured at xed points [16]. The equation for heat conduction in solids applied to the proper sensor model yields the relationship by which measured temperature is correlated to the heat transfer rate. The most commonly used heat-ux sensors are the so-called one-dimensional ones, where the heat ux to be measured is assumed to be normal to the sensing element surface, i.e. the temperature gradient components that are parallel to the slab plane are neglected. In practice, the slab surfaces can also be curved, but their curvature can be ignored if the layer affected by the input heat ux is relatively small as compared to the local radius of curvature of the slab. In the following, rst ideal one-dimensional sensors are considered and then, whenever possible, the use of some of them will be extended to the multi-dimensional case. The term ideal means that thermophysical properties of the sensor material are assumed to be independent of temperature and that the inuence of the temperature sensing element is not considered.

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The most commonly used one-dimensional sensor models are: (1) Thin-lm sensor: A very thin resistance thermometer (lm) classically measures the surface temperature of a thermally thicker slab to which is bonded. Heat ux is inferred from the theory of heat conduction in a semi-innite wall. The surface lm must be very thin so as to have negligible heat capacity and thermal resistance as compared to the slab ones. To use this sensor with infrared thermography, the heat exchanging surface must be necessarily viewed by IRSR. (2) Thick-lm sensor: The slab is used as a calorimeter; heat ux is obtained from the time rate of change of the mean slab temperature. This temperature is usually measured by using the slab as a resistance thermometer. (3) Wall calorimeter or thin-skin sensor: The slab is made thermally thin (so that its temperature can be assumed to be constant across its thickness) and, as in the case of the thick-lm sensor, is used as a calorimeter. Heat ux is typically inferred from the time rate of change of the slab temperature which is usually measured by a thermocouple. To use this sensor with infrared thermography, either one of the slab surfaces can be generally viewed by IRSR. (4) Gradient sensor: In this sensor the temperature difference across the slab thickness is measured. By considering a steady-state heat transfer process, heat ux is computed by means of the temperature gradient across the slab. The temperature difference is usually measured by thermopiles made of very thinribbon thermocouples, or by two thin-lm resistance thermometers. (5) Heated-thin-foil sensor: This method consists of steadily heating a thermally thin metallic foil, or a printed circuit board, by Joule effect and by measuring the heat transfer coefcient from an overall energy balance. Also, in this case, due to the thinness of the foil, either one of the slab surfaces can be viewed by IRSR. Strictly speaking, there is another type of one-dimensional sensor, the circular Gardon gauge, in which the heat ux normal to the sensor surface is related to a radial temperature difference, in the direction parallel to the gauge plane [1]. This sensor is practically of no use in infrared thermography. Recently, another type of heat-ux sensor based on a three-dimensional unsteady inverse model and IRSR surface temperature measurements has been also developed [10] but for sake of simplicity it will not be herein described. Application of IRSR to both the thick-lm and the gradient sensors is not very practical, so these sensors will not be herein described. The heated-thin-foil sensor represents a quasi-steady technique that will be discussed in the next paragraph; the thin-lm and the wall calorimeter sensors constitute transient techniques that will be treated in the following one.

3. The heated-thin-foil steady-state technique Within the class of steady-state techniques to measure convective heat uxes between a uid stream and a surface, a method, where the application of IRSR seems

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Fig. 1. Heated-thin-foil sensor.

to be very effective, is the heated-thin-foil technique. The sensor is made of a thin metallic foil which is heated by Joule effect (see the sketch of Fig. 1a). The main limitation of this technique is that, for practical reasons, the exchanging surface should have a cylindrical, or conical, geometry. In the following, it is initially supposed that the sensor is one-dimensional and that the surface not exposed to ow is adiabatic. By making a very simple (onedimensional) steady-state energy balance, it is found Qj Qr Qc , (1)

where Qj is the imposed constant Joule heating per unit area, Qr is the radiative heat ux to ambient, and Qc is the convective heat ux to uid. The radiative heat ux can be evaluated by Qr sT 4 T 4 , w amb (2)

where s is the StefanBoltzmann constant,  is the total emissivity coefcient, and Tw and Tamb are the temperature of the wall and of the experimental ambient, respectively. When standard techniques are used to measure the wall temperature, it is possible to have a very low wall emissivity coefcient so as to ignore the radiative

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heat ux to ambient. Obviously, this is not the case when measuring temperatures by means of IRSR. The convective heat ux can be expressed according to Newton law: Qc hT w T r , (3)

where h is the convective heat transfer coefcient and Tr is a reference temperature. The reference temperature depends on the stream experimental conditions. For example, for high Mach number ows (or for the mixing of two streams at different temperatures), the correct choice is the adiabatic wall temperature [1114] while, for external low speed ows, the reference temperature practically coincides with the stream one. From Eqs. (1)(3) it is possible to nd an explicit expression for h: h Qj sT 4 T 4 w amb . Tw Tr (4)

Under the assumption that the Biot number Bi hs=l (where s and l are the thickness and thermal conductivity coefcient of the foil, respectively) is small as compared to unity, temperature can be considered practically constant across the foil thickness. Therefore, the surface of the foil to be measured can also be chosen as that opposite to the heat exchange surface. If this surface is not fully adiabatic (see Fig. 1b), Eq. (1) should be extended to include the total heat ux to external ambient Qa. Usually, this heat ux results to be the sum of the radiative and the natural convection heat uxes. The natural convection heat ux to external ambient can be evaluated by using standard correlations tables [1517] or, better, by making some ad hoc tests. The hypothesis of zero-dimensional sensor is rigorously satised only if the constant heat generation over the sensor surface leads to a spatially constant temperature of the sensor itself, i.e. practically when the convective heat transfer coefcient is constant too. However, in many thermo-uid-dynamic phenomenologies the heat transfer coefcient varies and this involves variations of the sensor surface temperature as well. These variations cause conductive heat uxes in the tangential (to the sensor surface) direction, which may constitute an important part of the total heat ux (Fig. 1c). By retaining the assumption that the sensor is thermally thin (i.e. with a constant temperature across its thickness) and ideal, it is possible (for an isotropic slab) to evaluate the tangential conduction heat ux Qk by means of Fourier law: Qk lsr2 T w . (5)

Therefore, in order to extend the heated-thin-foil technique to the multidimensional case it is necessary to include in the energy balance the conductive heat ux along the tangential direction as well. So the nal form of the convective heat transfer coefcient becomes h Qj sT 4 T 4 Qa Qk w amb . Tw Tr (6)

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It is important to remark that the use of IRSR (intrinsically two-dimensional) generally enables to evaluate the Laplacian of Eq. (5) by numerical computation. Of course, this can be performed only after an adequate ltering of the camera experimental signal, which is typically affected by noise. In many applications of the heated-thin-foil sensor, a quasi spatially constant Joule heating can be easily obtained by using a printed circuit board [18,19]. The printed circuit is generally manufactured by several adjacent thin (down to 5 mm) copper tracks arranged in a greek fret mode (see Fig. 2) and bound to a breglass substrate. Due to the high conductivity coefcient of copper, this printed circuit board has an anisotropic thermal conduction behaviour (along or across the tracks) so that it is not possible to evaluate the conductive heat ux by means of the classical Fourier law (5). By still retaining the assumption that Tw is independent of the coordinate z which is normal to the slab, it is therefore necessary to generalise Eq. (5) to take into account this effect: Qk x; y rsx; y Lx; y r T w x; y. (7)

To simplify Eq. (7), it is feasible to roughly separate the effect due to the copper tracks from that of the breglass support. In particular, by choosing a Cartesian coordinate system with its axes directed as the two principal axes of the thermal conductive tensor L (see Fig. 2), it is possible to split the effects in the directions normal and parallel to the copper tracks [19,20]. In this case, the total conductive heat ux may be expressed as the sum of two contributions one along the x direction Qkx and the other one Qky along the y-axis: Qk Qkx Qky . (8)

Fig. 2. Printed circuit board.

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Bearing in mind the sketch of Fig. 2, it is easy to understand that along the y-axis, the conductive heat ux is the sum of two mechanisms in parallel, one due to the copper tracks and the other one to the breglass support. By considering the mean heat ux, it is obtained:   wc sc lc wf sf lf q2 T w Qky wf qy2 g sc lc sf lf q2 T w q2 T w sley , qy2 qy2 9

where w indicates width; s thickness; the sufxes c and f are relative to copper and to breglass, respectively, and it has been introduced the width parameter g dened as wc (10) g . wf In Eq. (9), the quantity sley stands for the equivalent thermal conductance along the y-axis while wf represents also the greek pitch. The phenomenon is slightly more complicated in the direction normal to the copper tracks. In fact, in the copper gap only breglass allows conductive heat transfer while, in the track zone, both materials contribute to it. Therefore, in this case, the conductive heat transfer can be estimated as due to both a series and a parallel processes:  1 2 1 g g q Tw q2 T w Qkx slex , (11) s f lf s c lc s f lf qx2 qx2 where (sl)ex represents the equivalent conductance along the x-axis. As expected in the limits g ! 0, or g ! 1, both Eqs. (9) and (11) reduce to the case of an isotropic material. For the typical case of sc lc =sf lf 17, Fig. 3 shows the equivalent conductances, referred to that of breglass, in both the direction of the

Fig. 3. Equivalent thermal conductance (sc lc =sf lf 17).

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copper tracks and that normal to them. For g less than 0.8, the equivalent conductance in the direction orthogonal to the copper tracks, reduces to less than one fourth of the value relative to g 1. This event may be exploited whenever the preferred direction of the spatial temperature gradient is a priori known to reduce tangential conduction.

4. Application of IRSR to transient techniques As already pointed out, IRSR can be regarded as a two-dimensional array of thin lms. In the transient technique, however, the measured temperatures can be correlated to the heat ux by using either the one-dimensional semi-innite wall model, or the wall calorimeter (Figs. 4 and 5). In the former case, practically the heat-ux sensor will be anyhow constituted by a slab of nite thickness s; hence the thin-lm model may be applicable only for relatively small measurement times (i.e., there is a lower limit to the frequencies the sensor gives trustworthy results). On a quantitative basis, if tM is the measuring time, it has to be veried: tM o s2 , 2a (12)

where a is the slab thermal diffusivity coefcient. Therefore, for this sensor the boundary condition on the other surface is irrelevant as long as the assumption of semi-innite wall is valid. By assuming the thin-lm sensor to be isothermal at initial time t 0, a suitable formula to evaluate the heat ux from the measured surface temperature is [21] # r" Z rcl ft 1 t ft fx p Qc Qr dx , (13) p t 2 0 t x3=2 where f T w t T wi is the surface temperature difference (T wi being the initial value of the wall temperature T wi T w 0); r, c and l, are the mass density, the

Fig. 4. Thin-lm sensor.

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Fig. 5. Thin-skin sensor.

specic heat and the thermal conductivity coefcient of the sensor material, respectively. Usually, the integral of Eq. (13) is numerically evaluated by using one of the algorithms accepted for aerospace applications [22]. However, such algorithms are generally sensitive to temperature measurement errors and one should be very cautious when using them with noisy data and/or when the initial time is not precisely known. Moreover, the approach based on Eq. (13) needs a relatively high data sampling rate and this requirement is not often fully satised by standard IRSRs due to their maximum acquisition frequency typically of the order of 50 Hz. An alternative approach [23], that works much better in these cases, is based on the assumption that the direct problem yields a certain heat-ux time variation law, where some free parameters are present. Then such parameters are found so that the computed temperatures best agree with the experimentally measured temperatures. The best t may be determined by the ordinary least squares criterion. In the most common case of a constant heat transfer coefcient h and constant reference temperature T r , the convective heat transfer rate varies linearly with the wall over-temperature. Based on the above boundary condition, the solution of the heat diffusion equation in solids can be obtained by Laplace transforms as T w T wi T r T wi 1 eb erf cb (14) p p with b h t= rcl. In the presence of a radiative heat ux and under the assumption that the convective and radiative contributions are uncoupled, Eq. (14) may be modied to take into account the radiative correction: Qr . (15) h The least-squares method consists of nding h and Twi (which, to a certain extent, may be not correctly determined due to inaccuracy on temperature measurement and/or on starting time) to minimise the function T w T wi T r T wi 1 eb erf cb
2 2

n X Y j T wj 2 , j1

(16)

where Y j is the j-term of the n experimentally measured surface temperature values and Twj is the temperature predicted by means of Eq. (15). Both of these temperatures are evaluated at the same time and at the same location.

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In the case of the wall calorimeter (thin-skin), the sensor, practically a thin plate (Fig. 5), is modelled as an ideal calorimeter (isothermal across its thickness) which is heated on one surface and thermically insulated on the other one. An unsteady onedimensional energy balance gives dT w , (17) dt where Tw is the sensor temperature. From Newton law, Eq. (3) and by knowing the temperature evolution (to be measured with the IRSR), it is possible to evaluate the convective heat transfer coefcient. The use of IRSR in the wall calorimeter technique is quite advantageous because the temperature can be measured on either side of the model. As already mentioned, for both thin-skin and thin-lm models, the heat ux within the sensor is generally assumed to be one-dimensional. This hypothesis is rigorously satised only when the temperature over the sensor surface is constant. However, in many thermo-uid-dynamic phenomenologies, the involved heat ux (and correspondingly the temperature) varies over the surface. Under the assumption that the sensor material is isotropic, or (as already done in the previous paragraph) by choosing a cartesian coordinate system with its axes directed as the two principal axes of the thermal conductive tensor, it is possible to split conduction effects in the two tangential directions. For the sake of ease, in the following, it is assumed that the convective heat ux harmonically varies only along one direction parallel to the sensor surface the extension to any arbitrary convective heat ux being straightforward. A suitable expression for steady convective heat uxes harmonically varying in the x direction is the following: Qc Qr rcs Qc x Qu Qh coskx, (18) where Qu represents the steady part of the heat ux, Qh is the amplitude of its harmonic part, and k 2p=L is the wave number (L being the wavelength). For the two sensors, the response due to a harmonic spatial variation of the heat ux is given by de Felice et al. [24] in terms of difference between the surface temperature T w x; t at time t and the initial uniform temperature T wi : yx; t T w x; t T wi . For both sensors it results: yx; t Bf Fo coskx, where Fo k at. If sufx t denotes the thin-skin sensor and sufx m the thin-lm one, it is Bt Qh =lk2 s; Bm Qh =lk; f t 1 exp Fo, p f m erf Fo, (20) (21)
2

(19)

where s is the thickness of the thin-skin sensor. Eq. (19) states that, in both cases, there is no phase difference between the incident harmonic heat ux and the surface temperature response. The maximum

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amplitudes, obtained for Fo ! 1, are Bt and Bm , respectively. For nite values of Fo, they are reduced by the attenuation factors f t and f m , respectively. To correct the measured temperatures so as to take into account the tangential conduction effects, it is convenient to evaluate the ratio between the temperature amplitude B f(Fo) (as given by Eqs. (20) and (21)) and that corresponding to the same value of Qh but in absence of tangential conduction (which is given by the classical one-dimensional solutions). By dening this ratio as temperature amplitude transfer function (A), for the two models it results: At and p p p erf Fo p . Am 2 Fo (23) 1 exp Fo Fo (22)

The amplitude of each harmonic component of the measured temperature may be thus corrected and the corresponding harmonic component of the heat ux can be evaluated by using the classical one-dimensional formulae. Af and Am are plotted as a function of the Fouriers number in Fig. 6 which shows that the thin-lm sensor has to be generally preferred to the thin-skin one because of its lower modulation of temperature amplitude. However, being s=L51, the ratio of the temperature maximum amplitude is favourable to the thin-skin sensor.

Fig. 6. Temperature amplitude transfer function.

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5. Applications In the following, the heat transfer in three different uid ow congurations are analysed by means of infrared thermography by using both the steady-state heatedthin-foil sensor and the unsteady thin-lm one. With the former sensor a circular cylinder in a wind tunnel and a 1801 turn channel with and without V rib turbulators (i.e. an external ow and an internal one) are investigated, while the thin-lm sensor has been applied to the study of the shock wave/boundary layer interaction on a at plate with a ramp in a high enthalpy hypersonic wind tunnel. 5.1. Circular cylinder Cylindrical bodies with circular cross section placed in a longitudinal ow are found in many engineering applications; the ow eld around them is characterised by different types and extent of ow separation and reattachment according to the geometry of the cylinder upstream end and of the angle of attack of their axis relative to the incoming ow. The tested longitudinal cylinder has an outer diameter D 40 mm, an overall streamwise length of 300 mm and its lateral surface is made out of a printed circuit board (bonded to a breglass layer) so as to generate a constant Joule heat ux over it. The copper conducting tracks of the printed circuit are 35 mm thick, 3 mm wide, placed at 4 mm pitch and aligned perpendicularly to the cylinder axis. Two different congurations of the cylinder leading edge (nose) are tested: a sharp edge bluff nose and a hemispherical (round) blunt one. Tests are performed in an open circuit wind tunnel having a 300 400 mm2 rectangular test section which is 1.1 m long. The freestream turbulence intensity of the tunnel is quite low and lies in the range 0.080.12% depending on the testing conditions. The access window for the infrared camera to the test section of the wind tunnel is made of bioriented polyethylene; calibration of the radiometer takes into account its presence. The convective heat transfer coefcient is calculated by means of Eq. (6), where, because of the stream low Mach number, the adiabatic wall temperature is assumed to coincide with the free stream temperature T aw T 1 . Tests are carried out for varying the Reynolds number Re (based on the diameter of the cylinder D and on the freestream velocity V 1 ) from 26,000 to 89,000 and the angle of attack of the cylinder axis with respect to the oncoming ow g from 01 to 101. In order to measure temperatures in the whole heated zone and to account for the directional emissivity coefcient, three thermal images in the azimuthal direction are taken and patched up. In particular, to reduce the measurement noise, each image is obtained by averaging 32 thermograms in a time sequence. It has to be noted that, due to the end-conduction effects near the forebody, the portion of the cylinder for which the infrared camera gives reliable data actually starts at x=D 0:2 (x being the coordinate along the cylinder axis) and data are reported up to x=D 5. This zone is precisely identied by putting markers over the cylinder surface, which are useful also to patch up the various thermal images.

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The ow eld around a cylindrical body is characterised by separation and reattachment of the ow, which can be inferred from the distribution of the heat transfer coefcients. The heat transfer coefcients are computed in non-dimensional form in terms of the Nusselt number Nu based on cylinder diameter. It must be remembered that, as proved by Sparrow et al. [25], the location of the maximum Nu does not exactly coincide with that of ow reattachment; however, the position of the maximum Nu can be considered to determine the length of the thermal separation bubble [26]. For g 01 the maximum Nu value is positioned at x=D 1:621:7 for the sharp leading edge and does not depend on Re. Instead for the round nose, the maximum Nu value position depends strongly on Re since it moves from x=D 0:3 to 0.7 as Re decreases from 89,000 to 26,000. Results of the present investigation conrm the assertions of Carlomagno [27,28] about the fundamental role played by the freestream turbulence level for the formation of the leading edge separation bubble. As g increases from 01 to 101, for both congurations (sharp and round), the maximum Nu moves upstream on the windward side while it remains quite in the same position on the leeward one. For Re 71; 000 and g 101 some of the obtained data are presented in terms of Nu isocontours in Fig. 7 for the sharp edge and in Fig. 8 for the round nose. As it can be seen in Fig. 7 (sharp edged cylinder), the separation bubble appears shorter on the windward side, with respect to that on the leeward one, and at reattachment the Nusselt number assumes also higher values. On the contrary, for the round nosed cylinder (Fig. 8) two thermal reattachment points are present on the leeward side. A likely explanation for this is that the separation bubble disappears on the windward side giving rise to the formation of two vortices, which can be assumed to coincide with the saddle points observed by Peake and Tobak [29] on either side of the nodal separation point on the leeward side.

Fig. 7. Nu isocontours for sharp-edged cylinder, Re 71; 000, g 101.

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Fig. 8. Nu isocontours for round-nosed cylinder, Re 71; 000, g 101.

Another feature, more evident for the round nose cylinder, is the appearance of a low heat transfer region on the cylinder sides. The latter, by increasing the angle of attack, moves upstream simultaneously becoming sharper and enhancing the three-dimensionality of the ow. This region is presumably connected with the fact that the increasingly intense cross-ow leads rst to instabilities of the boundary layer, and eventually to the separation from the sides of the cylinder of dominating longitudinal vertical structures, similar to those described by Peake and Tobak [29]. 5.2. The 1801 turn channel with and without V ribs This ow conguration is often encountered inside turbine blades for cooling purposes. Really rib turbulators are often also used in the design of heat exchanger channels in order to enhance the convective heat transfer rate and thus allowing to both reducing the overall exchanger dimensions and to increase efciency. In 1801 turn channels, the ow is quite complex due to the various separations and reattachments of the ow and this behaviour it is further enhanced in the presence of rib turbulators. A two-pass channel of square cross-section 80 80 mm2 and 2000 mm long before the turn is tested; these dimensions guarantee a hydro-dynamically fully developed ow ahead of the 1801 turn. The central partition wall between the two adjacent ducts is 16 mm thick and ends with a square tip 80 mm distant from the short end wall of the channel. The two side walls of the channels are heated by means of three printed circuit boards and square rib turbulators (8 mm in side), made of aluminium (to have a high thermal conductance), are glued to them. Ribs have a V shape, with an angle of 451 with respect to the duct axis, have their apex pointing downstream and are placed at a rib-pitch to rib-side ratio P/e of either 10 or 20. Further details about the experimental apparatus can be found in [30].

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The heat transfer coefcient is calculated by means of Eq. (6) where Tr coincides with the local bulk temperature Tb which is evaluated by measuring the stagnation temperature at the channel entrance and by making a one-dimensional energy balance along the channel. Data are reduced in non-dimensional form in terms of the Nusselt number normalised by its fully developed counterpart Nu (DittusBoelter correlation [31]). Both the Nusselt number Nu and the Reynolds number Re are based on the channel hydraulic diameter. For the smooth channel and Re 30; 000, the distribution of the local Nu=Nu in the vicinity of the turn, is reported in Fig. 9a. Air enters the channel from the lower duct and leaves from the upper one. By moving streamwise along the channel, the ratio Nu=Nu increases around the turn and downstream of it because of the presence of secondary ows. Three relatively high heat transfer regions may be recognised: the rst one is located by the end wall (in front of the partition wall towards the rst outer corner) and is caused by the jet coming from the rst duct which impinges on this wall; the second one is located at the outer wall downstream of the second corner and is due to the jet effect of the ow through the bend; the third one is located at about the half part of the partition wall, downstream of the second inner corner, where the ow rebounding from the outer wall, impinges before exhausting. The second zone attains Nu=Nu values much greater than the other two due to the presence of strong secondary ows already found by Arts et al. [32]. Two relatively low heat transfer zones are also observed, one just before the rst corner of the outer wall and the other one in the neighbourhood of the tip of the partition wall; these zones constitute evidence for the existence of recirculation patterns. The overall increase of the convective heat transfer coefcient due to the presence of ribs is clearly evident from Fig. 9b and c, where Nu=Nu are shown for the two tested rib-pitch to rib-side ratios P/e. In all the Nu maps ribs are clearly visible due to the higher heat transfer rate that occurs on them. For both dimensionless pitches, the thermal pattern before the turn appears to be repetitive (in a sense, the ow could be considered as thermally fully developed). For example, in Fig. 9c, the shape and levels of the contour lines after the rst three ribs of the inlet duct are practically identical. Instead, some differences due to some measurements edge effects are found at the duct entrance. The secondary ows induced by the V-shaped ribs have the form of two pair of counter rotating cells and produce variations in the spanwise Nusselt number distribution both in the inlet and in the outlet channel by decreasing the convective heat transfer coefcient towards the channel axis with respect to that nearby the walls. Especially in the inlet duct, the reattachment line downstream of the ribs can be identied by the locus of the normalised Nusselt number local maxima when moving in the mean streamwise direction. The reattachment distance, which increases for the higher rib pitch, appears also to increase going from the walls towards the channel axis and this is most likely due to the interaction of the main ow with the secondary one. In the proximity of the rst external corner, it is possible to see a low heat transfer zone, due to a recirculation bubble as already observed for the smooth channel. Just

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Fig. 9. Normalised Nusselt number isocontours for Re 30; 000. (a) Smooth, (b) P=e 20, (c) P=e 10.

after the last rib and in proximity of the partition wall, the interaction between the secondary ow and the sharp turn produces a high heat transfer zone that tends to shift downstream for increasing pitch.

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For both pitches, the overall increase of the turbulence due to the bend induces higher values of the normalised Nusselt number in the outlet duct but the percentage increase is quite lower than what occurring in the smooth channel. 5.3. Shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction The development of hypersonic vehicles has renewed the attention on the problem of viscous inviscid ow interactions and, in particular, on shock-wave/boundarylayer interaction phenomena that are of great practical importance for air-breathing engine inlets, wing/body junctures and deected control surfaces. Prediction of thermal and dynamic loads on surfaces exposed to hypersonic ows is an essential prerequisite for the effective design of aerodynamic control surfaces and of thermal protection system of modern space vehicles in their trans-atmospheric ight portion. Measurements presented in this section refer to shock wave-boundary layer interaction in a two-dimensional hypersonic ow over a model consisting of a at plate followed by a compression ramp (wedge) with its hinge line parallel to the models leading edge. The model surface is realised with two separate MACORTM plates screwed onto aluminium supports. The model spanwise dimension is 100 mm. The hinge line is positioned at 50 mm from the leading edge and the ramp angle is 151. MACORTM was chosen as the model surface material for its low thermal conductivity, as required in connection with the use of thin lm model. Experimental tests have been carried out in Centrospazio high-enthalpy archeated tunnel (HEAT) [33,34] that is capable of producing Mach 6 ows with a specic total enthalpy up to 2.5 MJ/kg on an effective test section 60 mm in diameter, in the low to medium Reynolds number range (104106). The tunnel operates in a pulsed, quasi-steady mode, with running time ranging from 50 to 200 ms. HEAT facility mainly consists of an arc gas heater and a contoured expansion nozzle, installed in a vacuum chamber volume of 4.1 m3; auxiliary systems are tted to the arc heater to provide it with working uid and energy. Four rotary pumps evacuate the chamber until an ultimate pressure of 10 Pa is reached before each run. This vacuum level allows an under-expanded hypersonic ow-eld to be maintained at the nozzle exit for a running time longer than 200 ms. IR camera used during the test was FLIR SC 3000 and acquisition frame frequencies was 60 Hz for ow visualisation and 300 Hz for heat-ux measurements. A thermal map recorded about 80 ms after the starting of wind tunnel is reported in Fig. 10. The temperature distribution is almost bidimensional only near the model leading edge (the ow comes from left to right). Moving downwind, the continuous decrease of wall temperature, indicates the development of the boundary layer. Near the hinge line is clearly visible a region where the temperature attains a minimum that is due to the presence of a separation region in the ow. Moving along the symmetry axis after the hinge line the temperature reaches a maximum that is to be correlated to the ow reattachment on the ramp. If one considers that, in a rst approximation, the potential core may be assimilated to a cone emerging from the nozzle exit (the cone height being

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Fig. 10. Temperature map (in 1C) recorded on model surface after 80 ms from tunnel starting. Total enthalpy: 2.3 MJ/kg; stagnation pressure: 4.6 bar.

Fig. 11. Stanton number prole on symmetry axis. Total enthalpy: 1.8 MJ/kg; stagnation pressure: 6 bar.

determined by the expansion fan angle at the nozzle exit, ideally starting at arcsin (1/ M)), the intersection of this cone with model surface is clearly visible on the thermal map. The measured temperature time histories are used to compute heat ux with thinlm model described in Section 4. In this case, it was not possible to use the alternative approach proposed in [23] because during the rst 30 ms of test run the total enthalpy (and therefore the reference temperature) is not constant. For two typical runs, in Fig. 11 the heat ux along the symmetry axis is presented in non-dimensional form by means of the Stanton number based on the adiabatic wall temperature computed by means of the recovery factor for laminar boundary layer ow [23]. Experimental data are also compared with the classical at plate boundary layer analytical solution [35]. The results show a good agreement with theoretical solution on the at plate. Near the hinge line (X 50 mm) the presence of a separation region is clearly identied from the minimum of the Stanton number distribution. The

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entity of the heat ux at reattachment is in good agreement with data present in literature.

6. Conclusions The application of infrared thermography as an optical method in heat transfer and uid ow visualisation is analysed. The heat-ux sensors, which are normally used for the measurements of convective heat transfer coefcients, and the application of the infrared scanning radiometer as a temperature measuring device are critically reviewed. In particular, the corrections of the errors associated with tangential conduction along the sensor are investigated for the heated-thin-foil, the thin-lm and the wall calorimeter sensors. The heated-thin-foil heat ux sensor coupled with measurement of surface temperature by IR thermography is used to measure the convective heat transfer coefcient on two owelds: a circular cylinder at an angle of attack and a 1801 turn channel with and without rib turbulators. Furthermore the thin-lm sensor has been applied to the study of the shock wave/boundary layer interaction in a at plate with a ramp in a high enthalpy hypersonic wind tunnel. For the circular cylinder, in order to measure temperatures, in the whole heated zone and to account for the directional emissivity coefcient, three thermal images in the azimuthal direction are taken and patched up. For the sharp edge cylinder and an angle of attack of 101, the separation bubble appears shorter on the windward side, with respect to that on the leeward one, and at reattachment the Nusselt number assumes also higher values. On the contrary, for the round nosed cylinder two thermal reattachment points are present on the leeward side, while no reattachment is evident at the windward one. In the inlet zone, ribbed channels show spanwise variations of the heat transfer maps because of the presence of secondary ows. For both tested rib pitches, the overall increase of turbulence due to the bend induces higher values of the normalised Nusselt number, but, in the outlet duct, the percentage increase is lower than that relative to a smooth channel because of the rib already induced turbulence. This should decrease the thermal stresses in the turbine blade. Shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction phenomena in high enthalpy hypersonic ows has been studied by means of heat-ux measurement performed by IR thermography coupled with thin-lm sensor. The use of IR thermography demonstrate that the ow condition are two dimensional only geometrically. However, on the symmetry axis the IR quantitative measurements are in good agreement with literature data.

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