Heat-flux measurements on a hypersonic inlet ramp using fast-response temperature-sensitive paint

Global heat-flux measurements are performed using a newly developed temperature-sensitive paint (TSP) on an inclined ramp with sidewalls in a hypersonic shock tunnel. The paint response and image acquisition rate are sufficiently fast to allow flow phenomena on timescales of around $$100\,\upmu \mathrm{{s}}$$ to be resolved. Although a priori calibration of the new TSP proves inaccurate, in situ calibration allows the recovery of heat fluxes that agree well with embedded thermocouple measurements on both short and long timescales. At low unit Reynolds numbers, the flow on the main ramp surface is entirely laminar, but transition occurs in the corner-flow regions, causing a turbulent region to spread inwards from each sidewall and producing weak, unsteady features in the heat-flux distribution of the main laminar region. Within this laminar region, roughly steady streamwise streaks with a period of approximately ten times the boundary-layer thickness are also observed. At higher unit Reynolds numbers, the boundary layer on the main ramp surface transitions to turbulence. The fast-response TSP allows tracking of the time-resolved transition front: significant unsteadiness is observed, which appears to be only weakly correlated to unsteadiness in the freestream flow conditions. Based on the heat-flux signature in the transition region, the breakdown mechanism seems to be quite different from that observed in earlier measurements on a slender cone at similar conditions.