An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the static and wind-on performance of two in-house-developed polymer-based pressure-sensitive paints. Platinum tetrakis (pentafluorophenyl) porphyrin and tris-bathophenanthroline ruthenium II are used as the luminophores of these two polymer-based pressure-sensitive paints. The pressure and temperature sensitivity and the photo-degradation rate of these two pressure-sensitive paints have been investigated. In the wind tunnel test, it was observed that the normalised intensity ratio of both polymer-based pressure-sensitive paints being studied decreases with increasing the number of wind tunnel runs. The exact reason that leads to the occurrence of this phenomenon is unclear, but it is deduced that the luminophore is either removed or deactivated by the incoming flow during a wind tunnel test.
Keywords: contour bumps; pressure-sensitive paints; supersonic free-stream.