Influence of hue origin on the hue-temperature calibration of thermochromic liquid crystals

Liquid crystal thermography incorporates a process by which the liquid crystal color, bearing temperature information, is analyzed using image processing techniques to quantify complex temperature distributions on heat transfer surfaces. Previous researches have found that hue can be used to represent the liquid crystal color since there exists a monotonic relation between the hue and temperature of liquid crystals. It is found in this study that the white-light point, which is usually adopted as the hue reference point, does not generally lie at the center of the liquid crystal colors defined on a chromaticity diagram. This results that hue does not have uniform resolution to all liquid crystal colors and a biased error is produced subsequently in the temperature measurement. The non-uniform hue can be corrected by shifting the hue origin to the center of the colors or by a color calibration scheme so that the liquid crystal colors distribute evenly around the white-light point. Received on 15 November 1996     

Film thickness effects on calibrations of a narrowband thermochromic liquid crystal

Thermochromic liquid crystals (TLCs) have been widely employed by researchers in heat transfer and fluid flow communities as a reliable and non-intrusive temperature measurement tool due to their unique optical properties such as birefringence, optical activity, circular dichroism and selective reflection of colours in the visible spectrum as function of temperature. The use of narrowband TLCs are attractive for temperature and heat transfer measurements due to their higher precision in temperature measurements and due to the fact that narrowband TLCs are less affected by variations in illumination-viewing angles and illumination disturbances. Narrowband TLCs have been used with full intensity-matching methods to provide robust image processing for measurements of thermal parameters in transient heat transfer tests. Calibration of narrowband TLCs is necessary in order to obtain the intensity-temperature relationship of the TLCs. Film thickness is one of the factors which affects calibrations of TLCs. In this research, film thicknesses of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 μm were investigated on green intensity-based calibrations of R35C1W TLC during heating and cooling. Results showed an increase in magnitude of peak green intensity with increasing film thickness, with a percentage increase of nearly 18% when film thickness increased from 10 to 50 μm. Results also showed an inconsistent shift in temperature at which peak green intensity occurs, with a maximum shift of 0.40 °C, suggesting that film thickness effects may be insignificant for narrowband TLCs compared with wideband TLCs. A theoretical method for estimating the volume of TLC coating required to achieve a desired film thickness has also been described in this paper, based on the surface area and dry solids content of the TLC. The method is easily implemented and applicable for sprayable TLC coatings.     

Multilayer nano-particle image velocimetry

Nano-particle image velocimetry (nPIV), based on evanescent-wave illumination of fluorescent colloidal tracers, measures the two velocity components parallel to the wall averaged over the first few hundred nanometers next to the wall. The intensity of the evanescent wave decays exponentially with z, or the distance normal to the wall. Illuminated tracers closer to the wall therefore have images that are brighter than those farther from the wall. This nonuniform illumination presents the possibility to extend the technique to “multilayer nPIV,” where the two velocity components parallel to the wall can be estimated at different z-locations within the illuminated region. In this paper, the variation of tracer image intensity with distance from the wall was predicted using diffraction optics-based approaches. The predictions, which were validated by calibration experiments, show that particle image intensity decays exponentially with distance normal to the wall. The feasibility of multilayer nPIV was evaluated using artificial images of plane Couette flow that incorporate evanescent-wave illumination, hindered Brownian diffusion and image noise. Each image was divided into three sub-images based on tracer image intensity, and standard techniques were then used to extract temporally and spatially averaged velocities at three different z-locations. In these simulations, velocity data were obtained within 80 nm of the wall, a threefold improvement over previous measurements. The results demonstrate that multilayer nPIV is feasible if appropriate classification techniques are developed and used to separate tracer images into different layers.

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Study of the phenomena affecting the accuracy of a video- based particle tracking velocimetry technique

 The development of a video-based Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) technique has focused on the problem of the accuracy of this method. The PTV-method can be decomposed into three parts: the recording of the experiment, the image processing and the evaluation of the velocities. The accuracy of each stage has been studied. Inaccuracies due to resolution, length scale, light intensity and distortion of the x and y direction are analysed. One of the main factors influencing the accuracy is the selection of the time difference between frames. During the evaluation of velocities, incorrect identifications of particles may occur. The relation between the time-step of the frames and the percentage of incorrect identifications has been shown. The percentage of false identifications increases with the size of the time-step. The resolution accuracy is however improved when the time-step is increased. An adequate selection of the time-step has to be made to obtain a high resolution accuracy and a limited number of incorrect identifications. Received: 22 April 1996 / Accepted: 17 November 1996     

Temperature sensing with thermochromic liquid crystals

A review of the most recent developments in the application of thermochromic liquid crystals to fluid flow temperature measurement is presented. The experimental aspects including application, illumination, recording, and calibration of liquid crystals on solid surfaces, as well as in fluid suspensions, are discussed. Because of the anisotropic optical properties of liquid crystals, on-axis lighting/viewing arrangements, combined with in-situ calibration techniques, generally provide the most accurate temperature assessments. However, where on-axis viewing is not possible, calibration techniques can be employed, which reduce the uncertainty associated with off-axis viewing and lighting arrangements. It has been determined that the use of hue definitions that display a linear trend across the color spectrum yield the most accurate correlation with temperature. The uncertainty of both wide-band and narrow-band thermochromic liquid crystal calibration techniques can be increased due to hysteresis effects, which occur when the temperature of the liquid crystals exceeds their maximum activation temperature. Although liquid crystals are commonly used to provide time-mean temperature measurements, techniques are available which allow the monitoring of temporal changes. Selected examples illustrating the use of thermochromic liquid crystals are shown, and a survey of reported temperature measurement uncertainties is presented. Received: 3 February 1999/Accepted: 30 March 2000     

Digital particle image velocimetry/thermometry and application to the wake of a heated circular cylinder

 Digital particle image velocimetry/thermometry (DPIV/T) is a technique whereby the velocity and temperature fields are obtained using thermochromic liquid crystal (TLC) seeding particles in water. In this paper, the uncertainty levels associated with temperature and velocity measurements using DPIV/T are studied. The study shows that large uncertainties are encountered when the temperature is measured from individual TLC particles. Therefore, an averaging procedure is presented which can reduce the temperature uncertainties. The uncertainty is reduced by computing the average temperature of the particles within the common specified sampling window used for standard DPIV. Using this procedure, the velocity and temperature distributions of an unsteady wake behind a heated circular cylinder are measured experimentally at Re=610. The instantaneous DPIV/T measurements are shown to be useful for computing statistical flow quantities, such as mean and velocity-temperature correlations. Received: 3 January 2000/Accepted: 26 June 2000     

Geometric moiré methods with enhanced sensitivity by optical/digital fringe multiplication

A robust fringe-shifting and image processing scheme is applied to geometric moiré experiments. High quality contour maps ofU, V andW displacement fields are obtained with sensitivity enhanced by a factor of ten. The method is compatible with complicated intensity distributions, variable bar-to-space ratios of gratings, and optical noise. It is applicable to large fields for both in-plane moiré and shadow moiré measurements. Paper was presented at the 1992 SEM VII International Congress on Experimental Mechanics held in Las Vegas, NV on June 8.     

用胶囊式液晶粒子同时测量流场的温度和速度

胆甾相液晶在不同温度下显示不同的颜色，这一特性已被广泛地应用于固体表面或流体的温度测量．胶囊式胆甾相液晶具有粒子形态和温度－颜色反应特性，可以用来同时测量流体的速度和温度场．作者改进了粒子测速的测试精度；还标定了色度－温度关系，获得了自然对流流场中的速度和温度场     

Elastic-plastic analysis of biaxially loaded center-cracked plates

Center-cracked panels loaded in biaxial tension are examined in this paper. Calibration relations for the J integral and the Q constraint factor are presented for a Ramberg–Osgood power law hardening material under plane stress and plane strain loadings. Two cases are examined: an isolated crack and a periodic array of cracks both under biaxial loading conditions. The latter has previously been studied for plane stress conditions. A number of different J estimation schemes are proposed based on the remote load and displacement and their dependence on geometry, biaxiality, and material properties is discussed. The variation of constraint, as characterised by Q, is also presented for plane stress and plane strain conditions. Simple slip line field solutions are derived for perfectly plastic conditions and the resulting limit load solutions are compared with numerically determined values. Implications for failure of cracked plates under biaxial loading are discussed.     

Particle tracking velocimetry in three-dimensional flows

Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) is a well-known technique for the determination of velocity vectors within an observation volume. However, for a long time it has rarely been applied because of the intensive effort necessary to measure coordinates of a large number of flow marker particles in many images. With today's imaging hardware in combination with the methods of digital image processing and digital photogrammetry, however, new possibilities have arisen for the design of completely automatic PTV systems. A powerful 3D PTV has been developed in a cooperation of the Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry with the Institute of Hydromechanics and Water Resources Management at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In this paper hardware components for 3D PTV systems wil be discussed, and a strict mathematical model of photogrammetric 3D coordinate determination, taking into account the different refractive indices in the optical path, will be presented. The system described is capable of determining coordinate sets of some 1000 particles in a flow field at a time resolution of 25 datasets per second and almost arbitrary sequence length completely automatically after an initialization by an operator. The strict mathematical modelling of the measurement geometry, together with a thorough calibration of the system provide for a coordinate accuracy of typically 0.06 mm in X, Y and 0.18 mm in Z (depth coordinate) in a volume of 200 × 160 × 50 mm³.     

An experimental investigation of flow parameters inside a spherical swirl pre-chamber of a diesel engine under motoring condition

 The main aim of the present investigation is to experimentally study the flow parameters inside a spherical combustion chamber of an indirect injection diesel engine. For this a spherical chamber has been fitted in the cylinder head. Using a constant temperature hot-wire anemometer, measurements have been made under non-firing condition at 400 and 500 rpm during compression stroke. Mean velocity and turbulence intensity values are evaluated from the hot-wire signal. Measurements are made at three axial planes, six angular locations and four radial positions. Large variations of mean velocity and turbulence intensity have been observed within the chamber. From the measurements, the mean velocity and turbulence intensity are found to be maximum at 30° before compression TDC and these values are found to decrease towards the centre of the pre-chamber. The mean velocity and turbulence intensity distribution with respect to various locations and crank angles are presented and discussed. Received: 7 November 1995/Accepted: 26 October 1997     

Stochastic resonance in a bias monostable system driven by a periodic rectangular signal and uncorrelated noises

The stochastic resonance in a bias monostable system driven by a periodic rectangular signal and uncorrelated noises is investigated by using the theory of signal-to-noise (SNR) in the adiabatic limit. The analytic expression of the SNR is obtained for arbitrary signal amplitude without being restricted to small amplitudes. The SNR is a nonmonotonic function of intensities of multiplicative and additive noises and the noise intensity ratio R=D/Q, so stochastic resonance exhibits in the bias monostable system. We investigate the effect of any system parameter (such as D,Q,R,r) on the SNR. It is shown that the SNR is a nonmonotonic function of the static asymmetry r, also; the SNR is decreased when |r| is increased. Moreover, the SNR is increased when the noise intensity ratio R=D/Q is increased.     

含噪双稳杜芬振子矩方程的分岔与随机共振

研究了含噪声的双稳杜芬振子矩方程的分岔与随机共振的关系，并根据它们的关系, 从另 一个角度揭示了随机共振发生的机制. 首先在It?方程的基础上，导出了双稳杜芬振子在白噪声和弱周期信号作用下的矩方程，其次以噪声强度 为分岔参数分析了矩方程的分岔特性，再次分析了矩方程的分岔与双稳杜芬振子随机共振 之间的关系，最后根据该对应关系从另一种观点提出了双稳杜芬振子随机共振的机制，该 机制是由于以噪声强度为分岔参数的矩方程发生了分岔，而分岔使得原系统响应均值的能量分布发生了转移，使能 量向频率等于输入信号频率的分量处集中，使得弱信号得到了放大，随机共振发生了.     

High resolution digital flowfield imaging of jets

High resolution digital imaging, using planar laser-induced light scattering is being developed for analysis of gaseous flowfields. High resolution image data, implying both high spatial resolution and wide signal dynamic range, can be readily processed to yield two-dimensional distributions of species concentrations and, in turn, accurate two-dimensional images of concentration gradients and turbulence scales. Critical aspects of the technique are discussed; details of the design and the performance of the imaging system are presented; and results for laminar, transitional, turbulent and birfurcating nitrogen jets, using planar-laser-induced fluorescence of biacetyl, are reported. Initial results from imaging processing and the potential implications for flowfield analysis are described     

Automatic Full Strain Field Moiré Interferometry Measurement with Nano-scale Resolution

Moiré Interferometry (MI) theoretically can provide real-time full strain field measurements in dynamic environment. So it’s extensively used in reliability analysis of electronic packaging. Due to the nature of specimen preparations procedure, the optical noise is usually too strong so that an accurate phase-based information processing is not possible. In this paper, a 164 nm/pixel spatial resolution Moiré Interferometer with automated full strain field calculation is proposed. Provided by two-level zooming system, the high spatial resolution increase the signal intensity and eliminate some optical noise which allows accurate full strain field map generated automatically by the combination of phase shifting technique and continuous wavelet transform (CWT). Furthermore, the calculation procedure of CWT proposed here does not require unwrapping and differentiation, which avoid the possible numerical noise introduced in these two steps. In the proposed system, pixel by pixel in-plane strain tensors will be calculate from the intensity map of interferograms using phase-based method. The resulting strain tensor can be used to model constitutive relationship or compare with finite element analysis results. A thermal experiment on BGA packaging is used to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed new design.     

The Equivalent of Fourier Holography at the Nanoscale

The paper deals with optical holographic interferometry at the nanometric scale. The observed objects are sodium chloride nanocrystals. The object illumination is done through the use of evanescent wavefronts. The observed crystals become self-luminous objects producing pseudo-non-diffracting wavefronts. The wavefronts emerging from the crystals are the result of electromagnetic resonances of the crystals. A microscope is utilized to register the wavefronts generated by the crystals. A 6 μm spherical particle made of polystyrene acts as a relay lens to collect the wavefronts that are recorded by a monochromatic CCD and a color camera attached to the microscope. The structure of the recorded images is determined through Fourier transform analysis. It is shown that the recorded images are lens holograms formed by the interference of the wavefronts generated by the crystals. Fourier transform algorithms and edge detection algorithms are utilized to obtain the dimensions of the crystals. The power of Gabor’s idea when he invented holography is again proven in this study. If the problem of super-resolution is viewed from the point of view of the Theory of Communications, the fact that one can register both amplitude and phase of a signal of a self-luminous object provides the means of reaching spatial resolutions with average standard deviation of ±3 nm using helium–neon laser illumination of λ = 632.8 nm. The resolution that can be achieved depends on the structure of the observed material, in the present case ±5d, where d is the distance of the atomic planes of the NaCl. With improvements in the hardware and software higher resolutions may be feasible.     

Specific power input and local micromixing times in turbulent Taylor–Couette flow

In the present work, the distribution of the local dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy in Taylor–Couette flow was studied with the help of the particle image velocimetry (PIV). The experimental values of dissipation rate are strongly affected by spatial resolution of PIV measurements. Therefore, a reference value of the average specific power input is needed. Such a value was achieved from an independent torque measurement. Using these values it was possible to quantify the true local values of the dissipation rate. The distribution of mixing times in the gap could thus be calculated and was found to become more homogeneous with increasing turbulence intensity.     

Template matching for improved accuracy in molecular tagging velocimetry

In 2D molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV), tags are written into a fluid flow with a laser grid and imaged at discrete times. These images are analyzed to calculate Lagrangian displacement vectors, often by direct cross correlation. The cross correlation method is inherited from particle imaging velocimetry, where the correlated images contain a random pattern of particles. A template matching method is presented here which takes advantage of the known geometry of laser written tag grids in MTV to achieve better accuracy. Grid intersections are explicitly located in each image by correlation with a template with several linear and rotational degrees of freedom. The template is a continuous mathematical function, so the correlation may be optimized at arbitrary sub-pixel resolution. The template is smooth at the spatial scale of the image noise, so random error is substantially suppressed. Under typical experimental conditions at low imaging resolution, displacement uncertainty is reduced by a factor of 5 compared to the direct cross correlation method. Due to the rotational degrees of freedom, displacement uncertainty is insensitive to highly deformed grids, thus permitting longer delay times and increasing the relative accuracy and dynamic range of the measurement. In addition, measured rotational displacements yield velocity gradients which improve the fidelity of interpolated velocity maps.     

Thermoelastic state of a half-space having a thermally active crack parallel to its boundary

Using the boundary integral equation method, the problem of stationary heat conduction and thermoelasticity for a semi-infinite body with a crack parallel to its boundary is solved. Temperature or heat flow on the crack is prescribed. The body boundary is heat-insulated or is at zero temperature. The dependence of the stress intensity factor on the depth of occurrence of a circular crack at a constant temperature or under a constant heat flow is studied. In contrast to mechanical loading, thermal loading shows less SIF values than in an infinite body __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 46–54, April 2007.     

Experimental study of simultaneous measurement of velocity and surface topography: in the wake of a circular cylinder at low Reynolds number

A technique to provide simultaneous measurement on both free surface topography and the velocity vector field of free surface flows is further developed and validated. Testing was performed on the topography measurement by imaging static plastic wave samples over a wide range of amplitudes. Analysis on the accuracy of the topography reconstruction, the sensitivity to noise and the dependence on spatial resolution are presented. The displacement of the free surface is insensitive to noisy input and the sensitivity shows a linear dependence with the sample spacing. Simultaneous measurements of the free surface and associated velocity field in the wake of a circular cylinder are presented for Reynolds numbers between 55 and 100.