Abstract
A new cross disciplinary conception of transitional aero-optics is built up during analyzing and measuring the linkage between the hypersonic boundary layer transition on a flat plate and the jittering characteristics of the small-aperture beam through that boundary layer. Based on that conception, the Small-Aperture Beam Technique (SABT) and high-speed Imaging Camera System (ICS) used in aero-optical studies are considered as new techniques for the assessment of the hypersonic transition in the boundary layer on a flat plate. In the FD-20 gun tunnel, for the free stream parameters with Mach number of 8 and unit Reynolds number of $1{\times}10^7$ (1/m), those two optical techniques are used to measure the jitter of the small-aperture beam. At the same free stream parameters, the distribution of the heat transfer along the centerline of the flat plate is also measured by the thin film resistance gauge technique. The results show the similarity of the increase trend between the heat transfer and the jitter of the small-aperture beam in the transitional region. It helps us to surmise that it may be feasible to diagnose the transition in a hypersonic boundary layer on a flat plate by means of those above optical techniques.