Measurements of wall-shear-stress distribution on an NACA0018 airfoil by liquid-crystal coating and near-wall particle image velocimetry (PIV)

Measurements of wall-shear-stress distributions along curved surfaces are carried out using non-intrusive experimental methods, such as liquid-crystal coating and near-wall particle image velocimetry (PIV). The former method relies on the color change of the liquid-crystal coating sensitive to the wall shear stress, while the latter is based on the direct evaluation of shear stresses through the near-wall PIV measurement in combination with the image deformation technique. These experimental methods are applied to the measurement of wall-shear-stress distributions of air flow at a free-stream velocity of 15 m s−1 on a flat plate and an NACA0018 airfoil. The experiments are carried out at zero angle of attack for the flat plate and at 0° and ±6° angles of attack for the airfoil, and then the variations of shear-stress distribution along these surfaces are studied. These measurements in wall shear stresses agree with each other within their experimental uncertainties, suggesting the validity of experimental methods for non-intrusive shear-stress measurements. It is found that the wall-shear-stress distribution shows a small negative value upstream of the reattachment point on the NACA0018 airfoil, which is followed by an increase in shear stresses downstream due to laminar–turbulent transition of boundary layers. Such behavior of wall-shear-stress distribution is well correlated with the mean flow and turbulence characteristics along the airfoil surfaces, which are measured by PIV.