Corrections on LIFPA velocity measurements in microchannel with moderate velocity fluctuations

Abstract

Laser-induced fluorescence photobleaching anemometer (LIFPA) has been developed in order to measure velocity fluctuations of the unsteady micro electrokinetic turbulent flows in microfluidics. The statistical errors of LIFPA measurement, because of 3-D flows and Taylor’s hypothesis (compared with local Taylor’s hypothesis Pinton and Labbe in J Phys II 4:1461–1468, 1994), are theoretically estimated and compared to hot-wire anemometer (HWA) measurement that is used for conventional turbulence measurement. The correction factor in the direction parallel to the laser beam is estimated, and the influence of directional correction factors of LIFPA is also investigated. It is found that in our investigation, the error due to Taylor’s hypothesis is negligible. The influence of 3-D flows on the first derivative variance of velocity fluctuations in LIFPA is smaller than that in HWA measurement.