Measurement Techniques

Digital Particle Image Velocimetry

Heat and Mass Transfer Laboratory (LTCM)

Sepideh Khodaparast
Marco Milan
Navid Borhani

Spring semester 2011

Content
m

Introduction

Particle Image Velocimetry features

System components for Particle Image Velocimetry

Principles of Particle Image Velocimetry

Practical test (TPA) description

Spring semester 2011

Origins of Particle Image Velocimetry

Ludwig Prandtl water tunnel (1904)

Lausanne, 08/03/2010

Poohsticks (1928)

Particle Image Velocimetry applications

Fluid velocity measurement for fluid dynamic
characterization: Air flowing around a car or an
aircraft, water running through hydroelectric turbine,
blood flow, etc.

Spring semester 2011

Particle Image Velocimetry features

Advantages:

Non-intrusive technique: no modification of the flow

property at the scale of interest

Good resolution and accuracy: instantaneous velocity
vector maps in a cross-section of the flow
2D-3D Velocity field reconstruction: 3D components
may be obtained with the use of a stereoscopic
arrangement
Drawbacks:

Setup Time: need to optimize a number of parameters

Cost

Spring semester 2011

System components for Particle Image Velocimetry

Test section, seeding particles

Laser sheet
Camera

Spring semester 2011

Principles of Particle Image Velocimetry

Flow
Direction

Tube Wall

Seeding
particles

Time: t
Position: (x1, y1)

Time: t + t
Position: (x2, y2)

Velocity vector at:

x1 + x2 y1 + y2
x x y y
,
= 2 1 , 2 1

2 t + t t
t
2
2

Spring semester 2011

Cross-correlation function
R(s) = I1 ( x) I 2 ( x + s)dx
I1 and I2 are sub-area (interrogation windows) of the total frame
x is the interrogation location
s is the shift between the images
Two-dimensional discrete correlation function:

R(x, y ) = I1 (x, y )I 2 (x + x, y + y )
x

R(x, x)= Correla-on Map

Spring semester 2011

Particle Image Velocimetry protocol

1 - Divide the images into a regular grid of

smaller regions: interrogation windows (IW)

2 - Each IW of the first image is correlated with

the corresponding IW of the second image
3 - Find the location of the displacement peak
and compute the velocity vector
4 - Reconstruct the flow velocity field

Spring semester 2011

Particle selection

Small enough to follow fluid motion

Large enough to be visible
Homogeneously distributed
Tracer should not alter fluid / flow properties

Optimal particle image diameter: DI =2.5 pixels

Capturing fluid motion

Stokes number:

Stv =

particle _ response _ time

= V
time _ characteristic _ of _ flow F

Stv<<1: The particles and fluids will be in near equilibrium

Stv>>1: The particles will be unaffected by the fluid

Spring semester 2011

10

Seeding particle density

(number of particle per interrogation window)
NI =

Cz0 2
DI
M 02

NI = 5

C
Particle concentration
z0 Light sheet tickness
DI
Interrogation window size
M0 Magnification
NI = 10

NI = 15

More particles: better signal to noise ratio

Unambiguous detection of peak from noise
NI = 10
(10 particles per IW are sufficient to perform PIV)

Spring semester 2011

11

Maximum in-plane particle displacement

X Particle displacement
DI
Interrogation window size
FI
In plane loss-of-correlation

X/DI = 0.00
FI=1.00

0.28
0.64

0.56
0.36

0.85
0.16

X,Y Displacements < quarter of the interrogation window size

Choose the sampling interval and the optical magnification factor so that
the maximum image displacement is less than a quarter of the
interrogation window size

Spring semester 2011

12

Maximum out-of-plane particle displacement

Z Particle displacement normal to the observed plane
z0 Light sheet thickness
Fo
Out-of-plane loss-of-correlation

Z/ z0 = 0.00
Fo=1.00

0.25
0.75

0.50
0.50

0.75
0.25

Z Displacement < quarter of the light sheet thickness

Define a suitable observation plane and choose a sampling interval so
that the particle shift normal to the observed plane is less than a
quarter of the light sheet thickness

Spring semester 2011

13

Spatial gradient - Interrogation window size

The PIV resolution is proportional to

the IW size. It has to be defined to
resolve local flow gradients

Keeping constant the particle size and density, altering the IW size will
change the number of particles used to calculate the local velocity in an
interrogation window. The total number of vector for a given image pair
depends directly on the IW size

Spring semester 2011

14

Interrogation window overlap

Overlap of the interrogation windows increase the number of particle
that are used in calculating the flow field

Better spatial resolution

-

IW 1

IW 2

Longer computational time

50% IW Overlap

Interrogation window offset

Offset increase the PIV accuracy for flow with a dominant direction. The
IW is shifted between the first and the second image

Better accuracy
-

Longer computational time

IW 1

Image 1
Spring semester 2011

IW 1

IW Offset

Image 2
15

PIV Design rules

Optimal particle image diameter

Image density
In-plane motion
Out-of-plane motion

DI =2.5 pixels
NI = 10
|X | < 0.25 IW Size
|z | < 0.25 light sheet thickness

The IW size and the sampling interval define the spatial and the
temporal resolution

Spring semester 2011

16

Practical test (TPA) description

PIV system components:

Test section
Laser sheet
Camera
TP procedure:

1. Tune and calibrate the PIV system

2. Record images at 3 different
locations

3. Process the images on the PC

4. Save and export the results
3: elbow

TP objectives:

PIV system tuning (Record nice images)

2: guiding
vanes
1: Laminar flow

Understand the principles of the PIV technique (ex: correlation function)

and the influence of the measurement parameters (n of particles, size of
the IW, overlap, etc.)
Spring semester 2011

17

Enjoy the TPA !!!

Lausanne, 08/03/2010

18