Study on the application of 3D imaging based on the γ-photon silk thread method for visualisation and detection of flow fields

Abstract

As a flow display technique, the silk thread method can clearly show the state of the flow field. However, displaying the state of the flow field in industrial closed metal cavities is impossible, and results of the traditional silk thread method fail to present depth information. To address these limitations, we propose a display method based on γ-photon silk thread 3D imaging. Firstly, a flow field visualization experimental platform applicable for industrial closed metal cavity was designed. Then, aiming at the shortcomings of insufficient γ-photon scanning data and limited imaging quality in flow field visualization, an adaptive sinogram interpolation-iterative filtering reconstruction algorithm was proposed to expand the data via the adaptive interpolation processing of the sinogram in image reconstruction. Beltrami filtering was also embedded in the iterative algorithm to effectively reduce noise and artifacts in the imaging image. Finally, the internal flow field inspection of the NACA0018 airfoil and the industrial confinement turbine were used as examples to visualise the wing upper surface flow and turbine blade passage secondary flow, respectively, and the results were consistent with those of the numerical simulation analysis. As the angle of attack of the wing increased, laminar flow separation occurred, and the silk thread structure state changed to the point where the aircraft stalled. After the imaging map analysis, the stall angle ranged between (15°,19°), which is consistent with the simulation results. In the turbine blade passage secondary flow detection, the imaging map formed a horseshoe vortex with airflow separation at the central saddle point and silk threads clearly presenting the structural state of the flow field along different directions.