A calibration technique to correct sensor drift issues in hot-wire anemometry

Accurate calibration is imperative to obtain reliable flow measurements using hot-wire anemometry. Calibration errors owing to temperature drift, wire degradation, changes in ambient conditions etc can lead to substantial uncertainties in hot-wire measurements. A new calibration procedure is implemented here to account for most forms of drift that are typically encountered during high quality flow measurements using hot-wires. The method involves obtaining single point recalibrations of the hot-wire (in the free-stream) at regular intervals during the course of an actual experiment, and using these during post-processing to correct for any drift encountered. Unlike many other existing schemes, this proposed calibration correction method is not solely restricted to correcting temperature drift.