This paper presents the development of a plane wave tube with variable mean flow for static and dynamic calibration of shear stress sensors. The static response is obtained via a variable mean flow and the dynamic calibration is achieved by superimposing a known sinusoidal shear stress over the established mean flow utilizing acoustic plane wave excitation. The theoretical development of the dynamic calibration technique as well as the design and fabrication of the plane wave tube calibrator are presented. The results of static and dynamic calibrations of a micromachined thermal shear stress sensor are discussed. Our configuration has the capability to dynamically calibrate shear stress sensors up to 20 kHz.
