In situ calibration of hot wire probes in turbulent flows

A method for in situ calibration of hot-wires in a turbulent flow is presented. The method is particularly convenient (even necessary) for calibrating large probe arrays, like the 143-wire boundary layer rake of the WALLTURB experiment. It is based on polynomial expansion of the velocity statistics in terms of voltage statistics as originally described by George et al. [Exp Ther Fluid Sci 2(2):230-235, 1989]. Application of the method requires knowing reference mean velocity and higher order central moments (with the array in place) of the turbulent velocity at the probe location at only one freestream velocity. These were obtained in our experiment by a stereo PIV plane just upstream of the probe array. Both the procedure for implementing the method and sample results are presented in the article.