Pressure sensitive paint in transonic wind-tunnel testing of the F-15

The pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique has been used to measure surface static pressures on a 4.7% scale F-15E model with complex store loadings during a high-speed wind-tunnel test, Successful employment of the technique required an integrated process of paint formulation, model preparation, test procedure, data acquisition, and data reduction, Testing a total of 107 different combinations of configurations and night conditions has provided an invaluable database, The data have immediate qualitative utility as surface flow visualization, Details of the measured pressure distribution were readily correlated with specific geometric features of the model, Absolute accuracy, and hence, quantitative utility is determined presently by the paint calibration, The digital data can be processed readily by appropriate software to provide pressure distribution plots, pressure increments, and integrated loads, This test's combination of duration, variety of night conditions and configurations, and quick data turnaround represent a milestone in the practical application of PSP in aerospace testing.