Review of Experimental Studies on Swirling Flow in the Circular Tube using PIV Technique

Abstract

The study of swirling flow is of technical and scientific interest because it has an internal recirculation field, and its tangential velocity is related to the curvature of streamline. The fluid flow for tubes and elbow of heat exchangers has been studied largely through experiments and numerical methods, but studies about swirling flow have been insufficient. Using the particle image velocimetry(PTV) method, this study found the time averaged velocity distribution with swirl and without swirl along longitude sections and the results appear to be physically reasonable. In addition, streamwise mean velocity distribution was compares with that of other. Furthermore, other experimental investigation was performed to study the characteristics of turbulent water flow in a horizontal circular tube by using liquid crystal. 2D PIV technique is employed for velocity measurement and liquid crystal is used for heat transfer experiments in water. Temperature visualization was made quantitatively by calibrating the colour of the liquid crystal versus temperature using various approaches.