The measurement of the turbulent shear stresses and normal and bi-normal intensities with a hot-wire anemometer requires that the directional sensitivity of the hot-wire be known. Normal component or cosine law cooling is generally assumed, although for finite wire lengths the non-uniform wire temperature must cause a deviation from the cosine law.

Careful heat transfer measurements from wires inclined and normal to the flow were taken for several values of the Reynolds number, the length-to-diameter ratio of the wire, the overheat ratio and for several support configurations. All experiments were performed in air at low subsonic velocities, i.e. M < 0·1. The measurements indicate that the heat loss from an inclined wire is larger than that from a wire normal to the flow with the same normal component of velocity. The data were correlated by \[ U^2_E(\alpha) = U^2(0)(\cos^2\alpha + k^2\sin^2\alpha), \] where UE(α) is the effective cooling velocity at the angle α between the normal to the wire and the mean flow direction and U(0) is the velocity at α = 0. The value of k was found to depend primarily upon the length-to-diameter ratio ([lscr ]/d) of the wire. For platinum wires k is approximately 0·20 for [lscr ]/d = 200, decreases with increasing [lscr ]/d, and becomes effectively zero at [lscr ]/d = 600.

To aid in interpreting the heat transfer data, measurements of the temperature distribution along inclined and normal wires were made with a high sensitivity infra-red detector coupled to a high resolution microscrope with reflective optics. The measurements indicate that inclined wires and normal wires have nearly identical end conduction losses, although the temperature distribution on an inclined wire is slightly asymmetrical. Therefore, the deviation from the cosine law is caused by an increase in the convection heat loss, and this increase is attributed to the tangential component of velocity.