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The United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of the

United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

William E Miller

Joseph S Heyman

William P Winfree

D Michele Heath

Robert A Frosch

Arden Sher

Christopher S Welch

Yuan H Tsuo

Christopher Welch

A sample in a wind tunnel is radiated from a thermal energy source exteriorly of the wind tunnel. A thermal imager system, also located exteriorly of the wind tunnel, reads surface radiations from the sample as a function of time. The produced thermal images are characteristic of the heat transferred from the sample to the flow across the sample. In turn, the measured rates of heat loss of the sample are characteristic of the flow and the sample.

Method of remotely characterizing thermal properties of a sample

Thermal remote anemometer system

Apparatus for converting a radiant energy image into corresponding electrical signals including an image converter. The image converter includes a substrate 20 of semiconductor material, an insulating layer 23 on the front surface of the substrate and an electrical contact 22 on the back surface of the substrate. A first series of parallel transparent conductive stripes 25 is on the insulating layer with a processing circuit 33 connected to each of the conductive stripes for detecting the modulated voltages generated thereon. In a first embodiment of the invention (FIG. 5), a modulated light stripe 38 perpendicular to the conductive stripes 25 scans the image converter. The resulting modulated signals generated on the conductive stripes are detected by the processing circuits 40 to produce signals that represent the image focused on the image converter. In a second embodiment of the invention (FIG. 1) a second insulating layer 28 is deposited over the conductive stripes and a second series of parallel transparent conductive stripes 29 perpendicular to the first series is on the second insulating layer. A different frequency current signal f.sub.n is applied to each of the second series of conductive stripes 29 and a modulated image is applied to the image converter (FIG. 4). The resulting signals detected by the processing circuits 33 represent the image.

Photocapacitive image converter

Growing community of inventors

Hampton, VA, United States of America

William E Miller