W-6C Facility Description
The W-6C facility operates experiments to study the 3-dimensional aerodynamic effects in turbine stator vanes. Previous programs include investigation of non-intrusive measurements of the velocity field within the cascade using laser anemometry(LA). Recent work forcused on the measurement of low turbulence levels in the cascade by LA. The cascade draws approximately 10 lb/s of air through a bellmouth via the filtered roof vents. The air passes through the vanes and exhausts at 20 to 26-in. hg vacuum into the central altitude exhaust system. The vane exit Mach number can be varied from incompressible to transonic flow values.

W-6C Special Features
An LA is used to allow benchmark measurements to be obtained for comparison with turbomachinery computer codes used for the design of advanced turbine blading. The LA uses a 7-W argon ion laser with advanced optical system to make measurements throughout the flow path. The LA optics is mounted on a high precision positioning system table controlled by a computer. An organic aerosol is used as the seed material for the LA. Individual Doppler bursts are captured by two Digital Signal Processor (DSP) boards in the data acquisition computer. The maximum capture rate of the DSP is 500 million samples per second.