Measurement of Shear Stress Acting on Flat Plate Using Oil Film Interferometry

Measurements of frictional resistance play an important role in engineering practice. There are several types of air resistance acting on an aircraft, for example. One of them, frictional resistance, accounts for half of the air resistance. Oil film interferometry is one of methods for measuring the frictional resistance. Oil dropped on an object is thinly stretched by the frictional resistance. The bright and dark fringe pattern is generated when monochromatic light is applied to the oil film. The gradient of the oil thickness decreases with the lapse of time, and thus the spacing between neighboring the dark lines increases. The rate at which the spacing increases is proportional to the frictional resistance. In this study, the frictional resistance acting on a small area on a plate was measured and compared with the theoretical value. As a result, these results qualitatively agree well with each other.