A rotating hot-wire technique for spatial sampling of disturbed and manipulated duct flows

The documentation and control of flow disturbances downstream of various open inlet contractions was the primary focus with which to evaluate a spatial sampling technique. An X-wire probe was rotated about the center of a cylindrical test section at a radius equal to one-half that of the test section. This provided quasi-instantaneous multi-point measurements of the streamwise and azimuthal components of the velocity to investigate the temporal and spatial characteristics of the flowfield downstream of various contractions. The extent to which a particular contraction is effective in controlling ingested flow disturbances was investigated by artificially introducing disturbances upstream of the contractions. Spatial as well as temporal mappings of various quantities are presented for the streamwise and azimuthal components of the velocity. It was found that the control of upstream disturbances is highly dependent on the inlet contraction; for example, reduction of blade passing frequency noise in the ground testing of jet engines should be achieved with the proper choice of inlet configurations.