Optical wavefront distortion due to supersonic flow fields

The optical wavefront distortion caused by a supersonic flow field around a half model of blunt nose cone was studied in a wind tunnel. A Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor was used to measure the distorted optical wavefront. Interesting optical parameters including the peak variation (PV), root of mean square (RMS) and Strehl ratio were obtained under different test conditions during the experiment. During the establishing process of the flow field in the wind tunnel test section, the wavefront shape was unstable. However after the flow field reached the steady flow state, the wavefront shape kept stable, and the relative error of wavefront aberration was found small. The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor developed was proved to be credible in measuring quantitatively the optical phase change of light traveling through the flow field around model window.