PARTICLE IMAGE VELOCIMETRY (PIV)

INTRODUCTION: Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a whole-flow-field technique providing instantaneous velocity vector measurements in a cross-section of a flow. Two velocity components are measured, but use of a stereoscopic approach permits all three velocity components to be recorded, resulting in instantaneous 3D velocity vectors for the whole area. CONSTRUCTION: A typical PIV setup consists of a CCD camera, high power laser, an optical arrangement to convert the laser output light to a light sheet, tracer particles and the synchronizer.

PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION: The pulsed laser sheet illuminates the small seeding particles carried by the flow. Positions of the particles during two consecutive laser pulses are recorded by a double-frame CCD camera. Once a sequence of two light pulses is recorded, the images are divided into small subsections called interrogation areas (IA). The interrogation areas from each image frame, I1 and I2, are cross-correlated with each other, pixel by pixel. Then the velocity vectors are derived from sub-sections of the target area of the particle-seeded flow by measuring the movement of particles between two light pulses The correlation produces a signal peak, identifying the common particle displacement. An accurate measure of the displacement - and thus also the velocity - is achieved with sub-pixel interpolation. A velocity vector map over the whole target area is obtained by repeating the cross-correlation for each interrogation area over the two image frames captured by the camera. The synchronization between the laser and the camera is controlled by the Synchroniser. (Draw the double pulsed particle image)

ADVANTAGES: The method is a nonintrusive one . The added tracers (if they are properly chosen) generally cause negligible distortion of the fluid flow. Optical measurement avoids the need for Pitot tubes, hotwire anemometers or other intrusive Flow measurement probes. Sub pixel displacement values allow a high degree of accuracy Displacement can typically be accurate down to 10% of one pixel on the image plane.

LIMITATIONS: The time delay between the laser pulses should be long enough to capture of the displacement of the tracer particles and short enough so that the particles with an out-of-plane velocity component leaving the light sheet. With the use of high power lasers, the tracer particles size can be reduced. The accuracy of the PIV measurements will drastically improve as the particles will follow the flow more closely. The size of the interrogation area should be small such that there is no significant velocity gradient within the interrogation area.

APPLICATIONS: PIV has been applied to a wide range of flow problems, varying from the flow over an aircraft wing in a wind tunnel to vortex formation in prosthetic heart valves. 3-Dimensional PIV techniques have been sought to analyze turbulent flow and jets. PIV have wide range of industrial application in design of modern aircrafts, cars, internal aerodynamics in power- and chemical engineering, etc.