Development of pressure sensitive paints based on silicon nanostructured powders

A new pressure sensitive paint (PSP) family, based on silicon nanostructured powders as luminophore, has been developed for application in stationary wind tunnel test and potential advanced turbomachinery purposes. The pressure sensitive paint operates on its photoluminescence quenching when the nanostuctured powder is exposed to an oxygen rich environment. Nanostructured powders, obtained with a combined ball milling—chemical etching process, are synthesized and deposited onto an appropriate polysilsesquioxane matrix, so that our paint can be adjusted for different pressure measurement applications. The formulation we propose is the first example of a PSP composite in which the filler acts as sensible element and it is localized over the polymeric film, reducing the response time due to oxygen variation to only a few seconds (0.5 ÷ 5 s).