Three-dimensional particle image velocimetry: a low-cost 35 mm angular stereoscopic system for liquid flows

A low-cost 35 mm PIV stereoscopic system for liquid flows is presented which has an imaging component cost under US$9000. The system uses an angular configuration, rotating mirror image shifting and in-situ calibration techniques. Image processing algorithms based on cross correlation and bicubic interpolation are also used to calculate the 3D data from the PIV images. Results from an error analysis have shown the system to have in plane errors ranging from 4.15 to 5.95% and out of plane errors of 7.01% providing an f-number of f2 is fixed for all imaging. Subsequent application of the system to a flow field generated by a free falling sphere in wheat syrup have produced results which when compared to previous flow visualisation give good qualitative agreement. Suggested improvements to the PIV system costing US$1300 would allow operation at f-numbers down to f by modifying the cameras for the Scheimpflug condition and using a corrective liquid prism.     

Double-clad fiber laser design for particle image velocimetry and material science applications

We have developed models to design actively Q-switched Yb-doped Double-Clad fiber lasers in various configurations. Based on these simulations, we present the design of two specific cavities: the first one is able to emit a pair of sub-nanosecond pulses separated by more than 500 ns for Particle Imagery Velocimetry applications. The time delay between the pulses can be adjusted by proper choice of the length of an un-doped fiber inserted in the cavity. The second cavity designed allows to emit long 150 ns pulses exceeding a few millijoules per pulse. Applications concern in this case materials science and combustion. In all cases, the rise time of the EOM is an essential parameter.     

Numerical modeling of microbubble backscatter to optimize ultrasound particle image velocimetry imaging: initial studies

We have developed a promising non-invasive ultrasound-based method for performing particle image velocimetry (PIV) in vivo. This method, termed echo PIV, provides multi-component blood velocity data with good (2 ms) temporal resolution. The method takes advantage of the non-linear ultrasound backscatter characteristics of small gas-filled microbubbles (ultrasound contrast) that are seeded into the blood stream. In this study, we use a numerical model to explore potential areas to focus future work in echo PIV.

Ultrasound backscatter from encapsulated microbubbles was modeled using a modified Rayleigh–Plesset equation (Church model, 1995), taking into account the protein/lipid shell layer as a thick, mass-conserving incompressible fluid surrounded by incompressible blood-like fluid. The equation of motion was solved numerically to characterize the fundamental and second harmonic components of the backscattered pressure. Results show a significant advantage in using the second harmonic component for echo PIV, especially for small bubble sizes less than 3 μm in diameter at 2.2 MHz frequency. The effect of the shell thickness ranging from 10 to 500 nm on the vibration amplitude of the bubble was examined and it is shown that the presence of the shell requires mechanical index (MI)>0.2 of incident pressure amplitude to improve bubble detectability. Analysis of the effect of pulse length shows a tradeoff between axial resolution (short pulse length) and bubble detectability (longer pulse length) will most likely be required. The effect of varying MI between 0.1 and 0.6 was also studied at a center frequency of 2.2 MHz and the results indicate that the resonance of the second harmonic is maximized for bubbles with diameter of approximately 2.75 μm. Bubble non-linearities at MI>0.2 induced a resonant frequency shift away from the integer multiple of the incident frequency in the second harmonic backscatter. For a given bubble size, there is a combination of optimal incident frequency and mechanical index range that maximizes the ratio of the second harmonic compared to the fundamental. This resonant frequency decreases with increasing bubble radius. Further, a narrow bandwidth pulse is shown to increase signal strength. Both of these effects may cause conflict with factors governing spatial resolution. Optimization of the incident frequency, microbubble size and mechanical index to enhance bubble detectability will depend on the particular clinical application. These theoretical predictions provide further understanding of the physics behind our echo PIV technique, and should be useful for guiding the design of echo PIV systems.     

Digital holography particle image velocimetry for the measurement of 3Dt-3c flows

In this paper a digital in-line holographic recording and reconstruction system was set up and used in the particle image velocimetry for the 3Dt-3c (the three-component (3c), velocity vector field measurements in a three-dimensional (3D), space field with time history (t)) flow measurements that made up of the new full-flow field experimental technique—digital holographic particle image velocimetry (DHPIV). The traditional holographic film was replaced by a CCD chip that records instantaneously the interference fringes directly without the darkroom processing, and the virtual image slices in different positions were reconstructed by computation using Fresnel–Kirchhoff integral method from the digital holographic image. Also a complex field signal filter (analyzing image calculated by its intensity and phase from real and image parts in fast fourier transform (FFT)) was applied in image reconstruction to achieve the thin focus depth of image field that has a strong effect with the vertical velocity component resolution. Using the frame-straddle CCD device techniques, the 3c velocity vector was computed by 3D cross-correlation through space interrogation block matching through the reconstructed image slices with the digital complex field signal filter. Then the 3D-3c-velocity field (about 20 000 vectors), 3D-streamline and 3D-vorticiry fields, and the time evolution movies (30 field/s) for the 3Dt-3c flows were displayed by the experimental measurement using this DHPIV method and techniques.     

A novel non-intrusive sampling technique for laser on-line beam monitoring utilising a silicon mirror

The measurement of high speed laser beam parameters during processing is a topic that has seen growing attention over the last few years as quality assurance places greater demand on the monitoring of the manufacturing process. The targets for any monitoring system is to be non-intrusive, low cost, simple to operate, high speed and capable of operation in process. A new ISO compliant system is presented based on the integration of an imaging plate and camera located behind a proprietary mirror sampling device. The general layout of the device is presented along with the thermal and optical performance of the sampling optic. Diagnostic performance of the system is compared with industry standard devices, demonstrating the high quality high speed data which has been generated using this system.