Three-dimensional temperature and velocity measurements in fluids using thermographic phosphor tracer particles

Many flows of technical and scientific interest are intrinsically three-dimensional. Extracting slices using planar measurement techniques allows only a limited view into the flow physics and can introduce ambiguities while investigating the extent of 3D regions. Nowadays, thanks to tremendous progress in the field of volumetric velocimetry, full 3D-3C velocity information can be gathered using tomographic PIV or PTV hence eliminating many of these ambiguities (Discetti and Coletti, 2018; Westerweel et al., 2013). However, for scalar quantities like temperature, 3D measurements remain challenging. Previous approaches for coupled 3D thermometry and velocimetry combined astigmatism PTV with encapsulated europium chelates particles (Massing et al., 2018) or tomographic PIV with thermochromic liquid crystals particles (Schiepel et al., 2021). Here we present a new technique based on solid thermographic phosphor tracer particles, which have been extensively used for planar fluid temperature and velocity measurements (Abram et al., 2018) and are applicable in a wide range of temperatures. The particles are seeded into a gas flow where their 3D positions are retrieved by triangulation from multiple views and their temperatures are derived from two-colour luminescence ratio imaging. In the following, the experimental setup and key processing steps are described before a demonstration of the concept in a turbulent heated jet is shown.

Measurement of energy spectrum by using 100 eyes Tomographic PIV

PIV is one of the methods to measure velocity in a flow field, but its dynamic velocity range is narrower than other flow velocimeter. This disadvantage is particularly apparent in measurements of spectrum in turbulent boundary layers, where the higher wave number side of the spectrum cannot be measured with high accuracy. In this study, we captured images of the same particle in the flow field from many different direction simultaneously, and reduced the measurement error of the particle displacement by averaging the acquired particle positions, so called ‘Multiple Eye PIV’ [Maekawa, A., Sakakibara, J., 2018, Meas. Sci. Tech., 29, 064011]. We applied this method to obtain the energy spectrum in a turbulent pipe flow aiming for resolving higher wave number. Particle images were captured by a single high-speed CMOS camera (Fastcam Nova S6, 6000 fps, Photron) through a mirror array consists of 110 flat mirrors arranged in the shape of an axisymmetric ellipsoid (Fig.1), as shown in Fig.2. The images were evaluated by Tomographic PIV method to resolve three-dimensional velocity field. Fig.3 shows energy spectrum in a pipe measured by Tomographic-PIV with number of mirrors, N, up to 100 in addition to the 2D2C-PIV with a single mirror. Although the spectrum curve for the result of Tomographic-PIV begins to depart from the reference curve at wavenumber beyond 10-1 , such wavenumber grows as N increases, and consequently the plateau of the curve appeared at lower energy. Such a downward shift of the plateau is expected due to the improvement of the dynamic velocityrange, which is approximately one order in energy, i.e. three times in velocity, found between N=4 and 100. Note that the cases of N=4 and 40 loses the dynamic range against the 2C2D-PIV case. From the above, we can summarize that the advantage of Multiple Eye PIV over the 2C2D-PIV is effective when the number of mirrors is more than 40. In this experiment, the issue is that particles images flickered. In order to resolve this issue, we tried to use fluorescent particles, and obtained a clear particle images in the following experiment. We are now analyzing whether the energy spectrum can be measured with higher accuracy due to improved resolution of the particles.

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.

Reynolds stress tensor and pressure-related turbulence transport terms measured by time-resolved tomographic-PIV

Turbulence is inherently a three-dimensional and time dependent flow phenomenon (Pope, 2001). Because of the ubiquitous existence of turbulent flows in nature, accurate characterization of turbulent flows, either through experimental measurements or through direct numerical simulations, is of paramount importance for modeling turbulence (Liu and Katz, 2018). Since its inception in 1984 (Adrian, 1984), Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), among several other conventional techniques used for turbulence measurements, has been a valuable tool for providing reliable experimental data for turbulence research. Several advancements in hardware such as high-speed cameras, together with innovative algorithms and procedures, have extended the scope of PIV to a variety of applications. Westerweel et al. (2013) point out in a recent review article that one of the main advantages of the PIV measurement is its unique ability in measuring quantitatively spatial derivatives of the flow field. With the development of Tomographic PIV introduced by Elsinga et al. (2006), it is now possible to measure simultaneously the distributions of three velocity components in a three-dimensional flow field, thus enabling us to measure all the velocity derivatives of a turbulent flow. However, for a thorough characterization of a turbulent flow, in addition to the velocity gradients, the instantaneous pressure distribution in the 3D flow field also needs to be measured.

Non-Stokesian flow through ordered thin porous media imaged by tomographic-PIV

The 3D flow-fields in a staggered and cubic arrangement of mono-radii cylinders are investigated using tomographic-PIV. The cylinder Reynolds-number is in the range of $$\approx 10$$ ≈ 10 to $$\approx 800$$ ≈ 800 giving an almost complete overview of the transition region. Two pore-scale effects are discovered. The first, visible in the cubic packing, is a spatially alternating lateral velocity field, which has a significant impact on the pressure drop and transversal dispersion. The second effect, present in the staggered array, is an example of a disturbance propagation effect that takes place in the laminar steady region; this manifests as a peculiar and complex flow-pattern. In accordance with other studies, it is shown that Darcy’s law can, from an engineering point of view be valid far beyond the limit for Stokesian flow. Graphic abstract