Abstract
A novel velocimetry method is proposed for point velocity measurement, which is based on tracking a laser-induced plasma in a flow. The plasma’s behaviour is first analysed spatially, temporally and spectrally in quiescent air. The dependence of this technique on the delay time between subsequent plasma images and the processing methods are described. It is found that, for optimized operation of the technique in a turbulent air jet (exit diameter 10.0 mm from a 480 mm long pipe; with an averaged velocity of 50 m/s at the jet exit resulting in Reynolds number of 34,000) with 100 µs time delay between plasma images, the systematic and random components of the velocity uncertainty are − 0.51 m/s and ± 3.6 m/s along the laser beam direction, and 1.25 m/s and ± 0.86 m/s along other directions perpendicular to the laser beam. These uncertainties are mainly caused by the asymmetric laser energy deposition during the formation of plasma, and the associated spatial resolution (in this realisation of the instrument) of 5 mm. The mean velocity measurements in the turbulent air jet flow are consistent with the reported flow behaviour in the literature for mean velocity: the turbulent intensity of axial velocity fluctuations is comparable to those in the literature but difference arises due to the limited spatial resolution. This velocimetry method is an alternative to traditional tracer-based velocimetry methods, because it does not require ‘seeding’ of particles or other substances in the flow. It also has the ability to measure local gas mixture composition, using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy approach, simultaneously with flow velocity, but this aspect is not explored in the current study.Graphical abstractConcept of Laser-Induced Plasma Image Velocimetry (LIPIV) applied to a turbulent jet flow. The LIPIV technique measures the flow velocity vector by using the temporal displacement of the laser-induced plasma in a flowing fluid. For this reason, two sequential images of the plasma with time delay Δt are used.
Highlights
The measurement of the local flow velocity characteristics frequently enhances the understanding of the physics of many flows, be these of technical or of research interest
Since the plasma image was recorded after 1 μs, it was better to capture the plasma image with a camera that was sensitive to infrared light
Laser-Induced Plasma Image Velocimetry (LIPIV) and Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) measurements of flow velocity and local gas composition have been demonstrated in a swirl-stabilised flame under atmospheric conditions, with and without reaction (Chap. 7 of Shi 2018), additional equipment to that presented here is required to do so
Summary
Experiments in Fluids (2019) 60:5 techniques are widely used because of their non-intrusive nature, of their ability to withstand harsh environments, their excellent accuracy and precision, and good spatial resolution. Air photolysis and recombination tracking (APART) is based on laser-induced fluorescence of NO molecules from dissociation of oxygen (Sijtsema et al 2002) These MTV methods rely on the presence of large signal intensities and a sufficiently long lifetime of the tagged molecules. A high power UV laser is generally necessary for MTV and the lifetime of the tracers depends on the quenching caused by certain species or pressure (Pitz et al 2000) Other velocimetry techniques, such as laser-induced thermal acoustics (Hart et al 2000) or magnetic resonance velocimetry (Elkins et al 2003; Elkins and Alley 2007), have high experimental complexity. An evaluation of the uncertainties of the LIPIV technique in non-reacting and reacting swirling flows is available in Chap. 7 of Shi (2018)
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