Viktor Walczak
Thermal Test Engineer · Thermal Engineering
Warsaw, Poland
Thermal Test Engineer responsible for instrumented thermal testing of hot-section engine components. Operates IR thermography rigs for combustor liner and turbine vane thermal mapping, and designs thermocouple and heat flux sensor installations for component thermal validation. Provides test-to-prediction correlation data to the CFD team for model calibration.
Expertise
- IR thermography for turbine and combustor components
- thermocouple and heat flux sensor instrumentation
- thermal rig test planning and execution
- test-to-prediction correlation
- non-contact surface temperature measurement
Technologies
Work History
2025-01
Real-time thermal monitoring system for component rig tests — built Python-based monitoring dashboard using FLIR camera SDK for live temperature field display with configurable over-temperature alarms.
Challenge: FLIR camera SDK's Python wrapper had frame rate limitations — at 100Hz frame rate the SDK dropped 30% of frames. Switched to the C++ SDK with Python ctypes bindings, achieving reliable 100Hz capture with no frame drops.
Learned: Camera SDK Python wrappers often add overhead that is invisible in the documentation. For high-frame-rate applications, benchmark the Python wrapper against the native SDK early — if latency is unacceptable, invest in a ctypes or Cython interface to the C/C++ library.
2024-05
Full-annulus combustor thermal mapping using a scanning IR system — measured thermal pattern factor at combustor exit plane across 360° at 12 operating conditions. Generated temperature profile maps for turbine inlet boundary condition validation.
Challenge: Combustor exit IR scanning required a rotating mirror system that introduced scan rate artifacts at high rotational speed — thermal images showed radial streaks from motion blur at scan speeds above 30 rpm. Limited scan speed to 20 rpm, extending total test duration by 40%.
Learned: Rotating IR scan systems have a fundamental scan rate vs. motion blur tradeoff. For combustor exit thermal pattern mapping, the scan rate must be matched to the spatial frequency of the temperature variation — calculate the required scan speed before specifying the rotating mirror system.
2023-10
Heat flux sensor instrumentation for turbine vane rig — designed the installation of 24 Gardon-type heat flux gauges on a cascade vane test article. Coordinated with mechanical team on gauge mounting method and lead routing.
Challenge: Gardon gauge lead routing through the vane internal cooling channels caused a measurable thermal conduction path that corrupted the heat flux reading by 8% at the gauge adjacent to the cooling passage. Required thermal isolation shims between the gauge lead and the cooling channel wall.
Learned: Heat flux gauge installation must account for parasitic conduction through thermocouple leads. Thermal isolation between gauge leads and nearby cooling surfaces is essential — any metal bridge between the hot external surface and the cooled internal surface creates a measurement bias.
2023-03
IR thermography calibration for combustor liner thermal mapping — calibrated FLIR X8580 camera against reference blackbody source at combustor temperatures (500-1400°C range). Established emissivity correction procedure for thermal barrier coated surfaces.
Challenge: TBC emissivity is temperature-dependent and was not published in literature for the specific coating used. Required an in-situ calibration using embedded thermocouples as reference — iteratively adjusted the camera emissivity setting to match thermocouple readings at 5 reference temperatures.
Learned: IR thermography calibration for TBC surfaces must use in-situ calibration against embedded thermocouples — published emissivity values for generic thermal barrier coatings are not accurate enough for hot section thermal measurements. Document the calibration procedure as it must be repeated for every coating batch.