The application to airfoils of a technique for reducing orifice-induced pressure error at high Reynolds numbers

A wind tunnel investigation was conducted in the Langley 0.3-Meter Transonic Cryogenic Tunnel to study the effects of porous (sintered metal) plug orifices on orifice-induced static-pressure measurement error at high Reynolds numbers. A NACA airfoil was tested at Mach numbers from 0.60 to 0.80 and at Reynolds numbers from 6 x 1,000,000 to 40 x 1,000,000. Data are included which compare pressure measurements obtained from porous plug orifices and from conventional orifices with diameters of 0.025 cm (0.010 in.) and 0.102 cm (0.040 in.). The two dimensional airfoil code GRUMFOIL was used to calculate boundary layer displacement thickness. The response time and the downstream effect of the porous plug orifice were considered in this investigation. The results showed that the porous plug orifice could be a viable method of reducing pressure error. The data also showed that the pressure measurements obtained with a 0.102-cm-diameter orifice were very close to the measurements obtained with 0.025-cm-diameter orifice over such of the airfoil and that downstream of a shock the orifice size was not critical.