3-D PTV measurement on turbulence modification due to an oil droplet in a plane Couette water flow

Three-dimensional particle tracking velocimetry (3-D PTV) measurements with a two-camera system have been conducted for a turbulent water plane Couette flow with an oil droplet in order to understand the modification of shear-dominant turbulence by the droplet. The parameters of the stereogrammetry, which are crucial for calculating the spatial coordinate of tracer particles from 2-D images of two cameras, have been determined with a careful calibration. The experimental results show that the axial and wall-normal turbulence intensities and the turbulent kinetic energy are enhanced locally in the confluence regions where axial main flow over the interface meets the secondary flow along the interface in the wall-normal direction. The secondary flows were observed only around the equator of the droplet. The wall-normal and transverse turbulence intensities are found to increase in the region above the droplet. This is due to the change in the direction of the primary flow over the top of the droplet. The turbulence in the other region is attenuated mainly because of the attenuation of the generation and evolution of the coherent structure in the neighbourhood of the droplet.