Modelling and operation of sub-miniature constant temperature hot-wire anemometry

High-Reynolds number flows are very common in technological applications and in nature, and hot-wire anemometry is the preferred method for measuring the time-series of fluctuating velocity in such flows. However, measurement of very high-Reynolds number flows requires hot-wires with higher temporal and spatial resolution than is available with conventional probes. Much effort has therefore been devoted to decreasing the size of the hot-wire probes and this has led to associated challenges with operation. It is this latter operation problem which is the focus of this paper. To this end, an existing theoretical model of constant-temperature hot-wire anemometers (Perry 1982 Hot-Wire Anemometry (New York: Oxford University Press), Watmuff 1995 Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci. 11 117-34) is applied, and its accuracy is tested for the first time by comparison to measurements using an in-house constant temperature anemometer (CTA) for both conventional 5μm-diameter wires and sub-miniature hot-wires. With the aid of this model, we propose modifications to the CTA design and demonstrate successful operation of the CTA with the Princeton nano-scale thermal anemometry probe (NSTAP) (Bailey et al 2010 J. Fluid Mech. 663 160-79). It is also shown that the transfer function obtained from the model can be utilized to estimate the true frequency response and cut-off frequency of a hot-wire-CTA system to the velocity fluctuations, which is essential in accurate measurements of energy spectrum and higher order statistics of turbulent flows.