Accurate PIV Measurement on Slip Boundary using Single-Pixel Algorithm

To accurately measure the near-wall flow by particle image velocimetry (PIV) is a big challenge, especially for the slip boundary condition. Apart from high-precision measurements, an appropriate PIV algorithm is important to resolve the near-wall velocity profile. In our study, single-pixel algorithm is employed to calculate the near-wall flow, which is demonstrated to be capable of accurately resolving the flow velocity near the slip boundary condition. Based on the synthetic particle images, the advantages of the single-pixel algorithm are manifested in comparison with the conventional window correlation algorithm. Specially, the single-pixel algorithm has higher spatial resolution and accuracy, and lower systematic error and random error for the case of slip boundary condition. Furthermore, for experimental verification, micro-PIV measurements are conducted over a liquid-gas interface and the single-pixel algorithm is successfully applied to the calculation of near-wall velocity under the slip boundary condition, especially the negative slip velocity. The current work demonstrates the advantage of the single-pixel algorithm in analyzing the complex flow under the slip boundary condition, such as drag reduction, wall skin friction evaluation and near-wall vortex structure measurement.

Design of a High Uniformity Laser Sheet Optical System for Particle Image Velocimetry

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is a non-contact, instantaneous and full-flow velocity measurement method based on cross-correlation analysis of particle image. It is widely used in fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. Laser sheet optical system is one of the key equipment of PIV, and it is an important guarantee to obtain high definition particle image. In the PIV measurement task of large low speed wind tunnel, in order to solve the problem of sheet light illumination uniformity of large size model and take into account the requirements of PIV technology on the thickness of the sheet light, a hybrid algorithm is used to design a high uniformity laser sheet optical system based on the theory of physical optics. The simulation results show that the size of the sheet light is 400 mm ×1 mm, the diffraction efficiency reaches 97.77%, and the non-uniformity is only 0.03%. It is helpful to acquire high-resolution images of particles in the full field of view. It also can be applied to a series of non-contact flow field measurement techniques such as plane laser induced fluorescence, filtered Rayleigh scattering and two-color plane laser induced fluorescence temperature measurement.

Possible Limitations of the Particle Image Velocimetry Method in the Presence of Strong Electric Fields

While examining the airflow generated between the asymmetrical electrodes connected to high voltage, the authors investigated the possible limitations of the particle image velocimetry (PIV) method in the presence of strong electric fields. The tracer particles used in the PIV method in these conditions are affected by electromagnetic forces; therefore, it is necessary to determine whether these forces have any non-negligible negative influence on the measurement results. For this purpose, the authors theoretically analyzed all the possible forces and measured the generated airflow using PIV and constant temperature anemometry methods. The experimental and theoretical results clearly show the viability of the PIV measurement method even in these very specific conditions.

The multi-functional rotor aerodynamic and aeroacoustic test platform at HKUST

This paper describes the multi-functional rotor noise and aerodynamics test platform at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). To investigate the noise characteristics of propellers with aerodynamic flows, the test rig is installed in the 2.5×2 (m) low-speed and low-noise wind tunnel in the Aerodynamic and Acoustic Facility (AAF) at HKUST. The wind tunnel can facilitate flow from 0 to 40 m/s. The test rig is assembled in a turntable on the ceiling of the tunnel wall, which enables the testing range of pitch angle can vary from 0° (axial flow) to 90° (parallel flow), with an accuracy of 0.1°. The noise produced by the rotor is measured by a set of wall-mounted surface microphones. Semi-empirical calibration is conducted to quantify the noise reflection by the tunnel walls. A low-noise struct has been designed and manufactured to locate a set of far-field microphones equipped with nosecone, to improve the quality of acoustic measurement inside the flow. In addition, a synchronized system is developed to conduct the phase-locking Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurement on the rotor, to study the flow pattern to better understand the noise generation mechanism.

Investigation on computed pressures from PIV, a study of how boundary definitions affect pressure accuracy along objects on the example of a cylinder flow.

This work discusses an approach to compute pressure fields from planar PIV measurement using standard CFD tools. In particular, we propose a combination of interpolation and mesh adaptation to import the PIV measurements on a grid that is morphed around objects, and is fine enough to solve the Poisson equation accurately. The whole process of meshing, interpolation and pressure computation is carried out using the popular open-source solver OpenFoam®. The method is tested and validated on a classic benchmark test case, namely, the unsteady flow past a cylinder. A 3D multiphase flow simulation is used to generate the reference data and analyze the impact of both, the PIV interrogation and the interpolation on the morphed grid. The simulation uses an Euler-Lagrangian one-way coupling approach to simulate the flow field and the dynamics of seeding particles. The analysis compares the pressure field from the 3D CFD simulation with the solution of a 2D Poisson equation based on the 2D velocity field obtained by either down-sampling the CFD data or by PIV interrogation of synthetic images built from the CFD data. Finally, we challenge the proposed method with the pressure reconstruction in a TR-PIV experiment in similar conditions.

PIV measurement of complex flow characteristics in open-cell metal foam replica

Time-resolved 2-D particle image velocimetry was used to study on turbulent flow characteristics inside an open-cell metal foam under the laminar and turbulent inlet conditions. A study on the effect of Reynolds number was conducted with different three channel Reynolds numbers, 1000, 5000 and 10000. Uniform upstream flow is divided by the pore network of metal foam and it is found that there are flow disturbances induced by metal foam structure even at a laminar inlet condition. It is confirmed that there is a similarity of the preferred flow path flows take regardless of Reynolds number.

Tomographic PIV measurement of a re-entrant jet in a cavitating venturi

Partial cavitation occurs when low-pressure regions caused by separated shear layers are filled with vapours. Partial cavitation is inherently unsteady and leads to periodic cloud shedding. The periodically generated re-entrant jet travelling beneath the vapour cavity is considered as one of the mechanisms responsible for the periodic cloud shedding (Callenaere et al. (2001)). However, the exact physical mechanism that drives the shedding remains unclear. The re-entrant flow exists as a thin liquid film wedged between the wall and the vapour cavity. The flow in this thin film is generally assumed to move with the same order of magnitude as the bulk flow, yet in the opposite direction. There have been several attempts to measure the velocity of the re-entrant flow to get insight into the physics of re-entrant flow and its contribution to cloud shedding. However, the flow topology of the re-entrant jet poses a major challenge to experimentally study it. The unsteady nature of the flow and the opacity of the cavitation cloud adds to the further complexity. In this work, we show that tomographic PIV (Elsinga et al. (2006)) can be extended to exploit the flow topology to accurately measure the velocity and thickness of the re-entrant flow. This in turn provides better insight into the role of re-entrant flow in periodic cloud shedding.

Examining the Effects of Fluid Velocity Gradients on 4D Digital Holographic PIV/PTV Measurements

4D digital holographic PIV/PTV (4D-DHPIV/PTV) methods have demonstrated theoretical viability due to their relative ease of setup and high spatial resolution (Soria (2018)). This study investigates how velocity gradients related to different flow regimes and their magnitudes affect 3-component–3-dimensional (3C-3D) digital holographic PIV measurement uncertainty. The error introduced by velocity gradients within the interrogation volume is studied by simulating particles in a velocity field, with a given constant velocity gradient superimposed on a uniform flow from which a time-series of hologram pairs are generated and the 3C-3D velocity fields and their errors are determined using 4D-DHPIV/PTV Sun et al. (2020). Hologram pairs are simulated by modelling the propagation and particlediffraction of coherent laser light using the angular spectrum method (Goodman (1996)). The hologram reconstruction then involves direct reconstruction, followed by deconvolution, a particle position refinement and a hologram subtraction step (Sun et al. (2020)). The particle positions obtained from 4D-DHPIV/PTV are then used to resolve particle displacement measurements using 3D cross-correlation digital analysis with a 3D Gaussian fit to sub-pixel resolution (Soria (2006)). The effects of velocity gradients on the displacement uncertainty and bias error have been investigated by undertaking Monte Carlo simulations under a range of velocity gradient environments. Specifically, 5 common velocity gradients have been studied, which included pure strain, pure vorticity and x, y and z-directional shear. The results indicate that the novel 4D-DHPIV/PTV has poorer accuracy and precision in the z-propagation axis, resulting in larger minimum uncertainties and bias errors. The errors in the z axis are also significantly less affected by velocity gradients in the z direction when compared to the effects of x and y directional velocity gradients on x and y errors respectively. Furthermore, the rate of cross-correlation maximum and SNR decrease are approximately 1.36 times slower due to velocity gradients in the z axis than other axes.