Mean wall-shear stress measurements using the micro-pillar shear-stress sensor MPS³

Abstract

A new sensor to measure the mean turbulent wall-shear stress in turbulent flows is described. The wall-shear stress sensor MPS3 has been tested in a well-defined fully developed turbulent pipe flow at Reynolds numbers Reb based on the bulk velocity Ub and the pipe diameter D in the range of Reb = 10 000–20 000. The results demonstrate a convincing agreement of the mean wall-shear stress obtained with the new sensor technique with analytical and experimental results from the literature. The sensor device consists of a flexible micro-pillar that extends from the wall into the viscous sublayer. Bending due to the exerting fluid forces, the pillar-tip deflection serves as a measure for the local wall-shear stress. The sensor concept, calibration techniques, the achievable accuracy and error estimates, the fields of application and the sensor limits will be discussed. Furthermore, a first estimate of the pillar dynamic response will be derived showing the potential of the sensor to also measure the turbulent fluctuating wall-shear stress.