This technology is a wall shear stress sensor for measuring the shear stress due to fluid flow over a test surface. The wall shear stress sensor is comprised of a wall shear stress sensor body and an active sensing surface. An elastic mechanism mounted between the shear stress sensor body and the active sensing surface allows movement between the shear stress body and the active sensing surface. A driving mechanism forces the active sensing surface to oscillate. A transducer measures displacement of the active sensing surface relative to the shear stress sensor body.
An instrument that can measure shear stress on a wall can be applied to virtually any application that involves fluids moving past a surface. Potential applications include pipelines, airplanes and even the human body to measure wall shear stress on arteries.
The extreme sensitivity of this sensor is hundreds of times more sensitive than comparable static displacements sensors. The device has low sensitivity to other forces like pressure gradients and features small size, high bandwidth and good temporal resolution.
