High Speed Video

ARA increasingly has the requirement to capture high-speed video data within the Transonic Wind Tunnel (TWT). This can be for release testing of objects such as fuel tanks from parent aircraft, the opening of parachute mechanisms or to capture model movement when high-frequency conditions occur.

The advances in high-speed digital video technology have made the imaging and analysis of these events much easier and ARA can quickly deploy high-speed cameras with remote triggering to capture this data. Combined with other technological developments such as Dynamic Pressure-Sensitive Paint, high-speed video can provide dynamic pressure data on the surface of models with up to 10KHz capability.

At the full 1 megapixel resolution, these cameras can capture up to 16,000 frames per second (fps) with the ability to go up to 647,000 fps at reduced resolutions. Due to the commercial confidentiality of a lot of ARA’s work no customer examples can be provided here. However, the following video was captured at 3,000 fps and is Schlieren imaging of a lighter being ignited.