Direct measurement of wall shear stress in a reattaching flow with a photonic sensor

Wall shear stress measurements are carried out in a planar backward-facing step flow using a micro-optical sensor. The sensor is essentially a floating element system and measures the shear stress directly. The transduction method to measure the floating element deflection is based on the whispering gallery optical mode (WGM) shifts of a dielectric microsphere. This method is capable of measuring floating element displacements of the order of a nanometer. The floating element surface is circular with a diameter of ∼960 μm, which is part of a beam that is in contact with the dielectric microsphere. The sensor is calibrated for shear stress as well as pressure sensitivity yielding 7.3 pm Pa−1 and 0.0236 pm Pa−1 for shear stress and pressure sensitivity, respectively. Hence, the contribution by the wall pressure is less than two orders of magnitude smaller than that of shear stress. Measurements are made for a Reynolds number range of 2000–5000 extending to 18 step heights from the step face. The results are in good agreement with those of earlier reports. An analysis is also carried out to evaluate the performance of the WGM sensor including measurement sensitivity and bandwidth.