Verification of Fully Developed Flow Entering Diffuser and Particle Image Velocimetry Procedures
3-Dstereoscopic PIV is capable of measuring 3-dimensional velocity components. Itinvolves a very sophisticated routine during setup, calibration, measurementand data processing phases. This paper aims to verify the 3-D stereoscopic PIVmeasurement procedures and to prove that the flow entering thediffuser is a fully developed flow. A diffuser inlet of rectangularcross-section, 130 mm x 50 mm is presently considered. For verification, thevelocities from PIV are compared with the velocities from pitot static probeand theory. The mean velocity obtained using pitot static probe is 2.44 m/s,whereas using PIV is 2.46 m/s. It thus gives the discrepancy of 0.8%. There isalso a good agreement between the mean velocity measured by PIV and theoreticalvalue with the discrepancy of 1.2%. This minor discrepancy is mainly due touncertainties in the experiments such as imperfect matching of coordinatesbetween the probe and laser sheet, unsteadiness of flow, variation in density andless precision in calibration. Basically, the operating procedures of 3-Dstereoscopic PIV have successfully been verified. Nevertheless, the flowentering diffuser is not perfectly developed due to the imperfect joining ductand the abrupt change of inlet cross-section introduced. Therefore, improvementto the existing rig is proposed by means of installing settling chamber withmultiple screens arrangement and contraction cone.