Imaging laser Doppler velocimetry

Imaging laser Doppler velocimetry (ILDV) is a novel flow measurement technique, which enables the measurement of the velocity in an imaging plane. It is an evolution of heterodyne Doppler global velocimetry (HDGV) and may be regarded as the planar extension of the classical dual-beam laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) by crossing light sheets in the flow instead of focused laser beams. Seeding particles within the flow are illuminated from two different directions, and the light scattered from the moving particles exhibits a frequency shift due to the Doppler effect. The frequency shift depends on the direction of the illumination and the velocity of the particle. The superposition of the two different frequency-shifted signals on the detector creates interference and leads to an amplitude modulated signal wherein the modulation frequency depends on the velocity of the particle. This signal is detected using either a high-speed camera or alternatively a smart pixel imaging array. This detector array performs a quadrature detection on each pixel with a maximum demodulation frequency of 250 kHz. To demonstrate the feasibility of the technique, two experiments are presented: The first experiment compares the measured velocity distribution of a free jet using ILDV performed with the smart pixel detector array and a high-speed camera with a reference measurement using PIV. The second experiment shows an advanced setup using two smart pixel detector arrays to measure the velocity distribution on a rotating disk, demonstrating the potential of the technique for high-velocity flow measurements.     

Taylor length scale measurement by laser Doppler velocimetry

 A new method for making direct measurements of the spatial velocity correlation coefficient, based on two-point laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), has been developed. In this paper, the effects of control parameters on the correlation coefficient are being investigated. The main sources of experimental error have been identified and analysed. It appears that the probe volume length has a key effect on the accuracy of Taylor micro-scale measurement. A data processing procedure has been established and validated for the determination of this scale. The procedure shows that the portion of the correlation curve used to determine Taylor scale is a function of the integral scale to Taylor micro-scale ratio. Received: 7 June 1995/Accepted: 8 December 1997     

Single-camera Doppler global velocimetry based on frequency modulation techniques

The main advantage of the described Doppler global velocimeter (DGV) systems based on frequency modulation (FM) or frequency shift keying (FSK) is that no reference detector is required. The frequency variation of the laser light during one modulation period additionally allows an on-line calibration of the complete DGV system. Thus, the new method has the potential to reduce the uncertainty of conventional DGV velocity measurements since time resolved velocity field measurements on a spinning disc have shown standard deviations down to 0.02 m/s. On investigating flow fields, velocity components notably less than 0.5 m/s were resolved.     

Unsteady flow in rotating drums using laser Doppler velocimetry

Non-destructive measurements by laser Doppler velocimetry is employed to study unsteady flow in a hollow drum filled with liquid. The drum is suddenly accelerated from rest or is suddenly decelerated from a steady rotation to rest. Pure water and glycerin-water mixtures are used as the test liquid in which polyethylenelatex particles are mixed as the light scattering tracer. The boundary layer formation, the time history of velocity, momentum and kinetic energy of the liquid, the wall-to-fluid force transfer, and the transient response time are determined. Also determined are the effects of side walls and fluid viscosity on the transient flow response. Of importance is the disclosure of Ekman layer instability near the inner radial wall of the test drum. It is actuated by the centripetal acceleration-induced buoyancy force.List of symbols A wetted surface area of test drum, cm² - a reciprocal of characteristic velocity, = t _sH, s/cm - B width of test drum, cm - b axial coordinate of test drum, cm - D diameter of test drum, cm; D ₁, inner diameter; D ₂, outer diameter - d diameter of laser beam, mm - d _p particle diameter, mm - E kinetic energy of liquid, kg · cm²/s²; E _s, steady value - F force transferred from drum walls to liquid, N - f focal length of lens, mm - G one-half of spacing between two parallel split beams, Fig. 1 - H characteristic length of test drum, cm; = V/A - M momentum of liquid, kg·cm/s; M _s, steady value - m mass of control volume, kg - r radial coordinate of test drum, cm - S fringe spacing, mm - t time, s - t _p time for particle to travel through fringe spacing, s - t _s transient time, s - u liquid velocity, cm/s - V liquid volume in test drum, cm³ - V _s effective volume of sample volume, mm³ - v velocity of tracer particle, cm/s; = S/t - W waist diameter of parabola in Fig. 2, mm - (x, y, z) coordinates for paraboloid in Fig. 2, mm - crossing angle of splitting beams, degrees - wavelength of laser length, cm - v kinematic viscosity, cm²/s - liquid density, kg/cm³ - Doppler frequency, l/s - s at steady state - 1 outer - 2 inner On leave from the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Musashi Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan     

Assessment of turbulent spectral bias in laser Doppler velocimetry

A critical evaluation is made of the spectral bias which occurs in the use of a laser Doppler velocimeter (LDV). In order to accommodate the randomly sampled LDV data, statistical treatments of particle arrival times are needed. This is modeled as a doubly stochastic Poisson process which includes the intensity function of the velocity field. Three processing algorithms are considered for spectral estimates: the sample and hold method (SH), the modified Shannon sampling technique (SR), and the direct transform (RG). Assessment is made of these for varying data densities (0.05 ≤ d.d ≤ 5) and turbulence levels (t.i.=30%, 100%). The effects of the values of the Reynolds stress coefficients and the transversal standard deviation on the spectral contents were examined. As an improved version of the spectral estimator, the utility of POCS (the projection onto convex sets) has been tested in the present study. This algorithm is found useful to be in the region when d.d. ? 3.     

High image-density particle image velocimetry using laser scanning techniques

Laser scanning, corresponding to time-dependent deflections of laser beam across a field of interest, can provide relatively high illumination intensity of small particles, thereby allowing implementation of high image-density particle image velocimetry (PIV). Scanning techniques employing a rotating (multi-faceted) mirror, an oscillating mirror, and an acousto-optic deflector are addressed. Issues of illumination intensity and exposure, rate of scan of the laser beam, and retrace time of the scanning beam are assessed. Representative classes of unsteady separated flows investigated with laser-scanning PIV are described.     

Measuring the wind-induced water surface flow by laser Doppler velocimetry

The way to adjust the laser Doppler velocimeter for measuring the water motions near a moving air-water interface is described by specifying the experimental arrangement, the choice of the scattering configuration, the seeding problems and the preliminary tests which were performed. This technique is then used to explore the motions induced by the wind near the water surface. Illustrative results on the instantaneous longitudinal and vertical velocities, the mean profiles and the respective spectra are presented and discussed. It appears that the Eulerian measuring method when applied to such flows and the presence of dropouts on the signals may require significant corrections of the original data before any physical interpretation.     

Power spectra of fluid velocities measured by laser Doppler velocimetry

The power spectrum and the correlation of the laser Doppler velocimeter velocity signal obtained by sampling and holding the velocity at each new Doppler burst are studied. Theory valid for low fluctuation intensity flows shows that the measured spectrum is filtered at the mean sample rate and that it contains a filtered white noise spectrum caused by the steps in the sample and hold signal. In the limit of high data density, the step noise vanishes and the sample and hold signal is statistically unbiased for any turbulence intensity.List of symbols A cross-section of the LDV measurement volume, m² - A empirical constant - B bandwidth of velocity spectrum, Hz - C concentration of particles that produce valid signals, number/m³ - d _m diameter of LDV measurement volume, m - f(₁, ₂ | u) probability density of t _i; and t _j given (t) for all t, Hz² - probability density for t _j-t_i, Hz - n (t, t) number of valid bursts in (t, t) = N + n - N (t, t) mean number of valid bursts in (t, t) - N _e mean number of particles in LDV measurement volume - valid signal arrival rate, Hz - mean valid signal arrival rate, Hz - R _uu time delayed autocorrelation of velocity, m²/s² - S _u power spectrum of velocity, m²/s²/Hz - t ₁, t ₂ times at which velocity is correlated, s - t _i, t _j arrival times of the bursts that immediately precede t ₁ and t ₂, respectively, s - t _ij t _j–t _i s - T averaging time for spectral estimator, s - T _u integral time scale of u (t), s - T Taylor's microscale for u (t), s - u velocity vector = U + u, m/s - u fluctuating component of velocity, m/s - U mean velocity, m/s - u _m sampled and held signal, m/s Greek symbols (t) noise signal, m/s - _m (t) sampled and held noise signal, m/s - bandwidth of spectral estimator window, radians/s - time between arrivals in pdf, s - Taylor's microscale of length = UT m - kinematic viscosity - ₁, ₂ arrival times in pdf, s - root mean square of noise signal, m/s - _u root mean square of u, m/s - delay time = t ₂ - t ₁ s - B duration of a Doppler burst, s - circular frequency, radians/s - _c low pass frequency of signal spectrum radians/s Other symbols ensemble average - conditional average - ^ estimate     

Wavelet series method for reconstruction and spectral estimation of laser Doppler velocimetry data

Many techniques have been developed in order to obtain spectral density function from randomly sampled data, such as the computation of a slotted autocovariance function. Nevertheless, one may be interested in obtaining more information from laser Doppler signals than a spectral content, using more or less complex computations that can be easily conducted with an evenly sampled signal. That is the reason why reconstructing an evenly sampled signal from the original LDV data is of interest. The ability of a wavelet-based technique to reconstruct the signal with respect to statistical properties of the original one is explored, and spectral content of the reconstructed signal is given and compared with estimated spectral density function obtained through classical slotting technique. Furthermore, LDV signals taken from a screeching jet are reconstructed in order to perform spectral and bispectral analysis, showing the ability of the technique in recovering accurate information’s with only few LDV samples.     

Measurement of velocities in gas-liquid two-phase flow using laser Doppler velocimetry

Measurements of bubble and liquid velocities in two-phase flow have been made using a new forward/backward scattering Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) technique. A standard LDV fiber optic probe was used to measure the bubble velocity using direct backscattered light. A novel retro-reflector and lens assembly permitted the same probe to measure the liquid velocity with direct forward-scattered light. Preliminary results show the usefulness of the technique in a duct of narrow thickness dimension.     

Discriminator laser Doppler velocimetry for measurement of liquid and particle velocities in sediment-laden flows

An accurate non-intrusive method of measurement of liquid and sediment velocities, called Discriminator Laser Doppler Velocimetry (DLDV) is described. The DLDV arrangement consists of a LDV, and a discriminator system that utilizes near on-axis diffraction from sediment particles passing through or grazing the LDV measurement volume to result in strong voltage signals. For liquid velocity statistics, velocity measurements associated with a discriminator voltage above a threshold are discarded; the discriminator signal is used to validate that only particle velocities are recorded during particle velocity measurement. Possible error sources in the use of DLDV are discussed. Measurements using DLDV in an open-channel alluvial sand-laden flow indicate differences between liquid and particle velocities even for dilute sand concentrations.The initial financial support of the project was provided by NSF, under grant CTS-9021149. Financial support from the Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research in gratefully acknowledged.     

Application of nonlinear spectral analysis and signal reconstruction to laser Doppler velocimetry

Spectral analysis is a useful tool in engineering applications but many practical problems are encountered in computing power spectral densities (PSD), particularly in laser Doppler velocimetry where data are irregularly sampled. Methods to compute PSD are usely based on discrete Fourier transforms such as FFT. A non linear spectral analysis approach is tested and found to give better results, particularly with short data records. Results are also quite promising when non linear spectral analysis is combined with signal reconstruction to process irregularly sampled data.A preliminary version of this paper has been presented at LDA specialist meeting on the use of computers, May 1987, Institut Saint Louis, France     

Two-point laser Doppler velocimetry measurements in a Mach 1.2 cold supersonic jet for statistical aeroacoustic source model

Single and multi-point laser Doppler velocimetry measurements performed in a cold Mach 1.2 jet flow are used to assess those properties of the aerodynamic field most relevant in the generation of turbulence mixing noise. Single point measurements yield mean velocity profiles, turbulence intensity profiles and power spectral densities of both the velocity and Reynolds stress fields at seven axial stations between the jet exit and the end of the potential core. The longitudinal components of the second-order and fourth-order two-point velocity correlation tensor are obtained from a series of multi-point LDV measurements, whence a cartography of integral space and time scales, convection velocities and acoustic compactness is effected. These results are used to examine differences between subsonic and supersonic jet aerodynamics in terms of their sound generating potential. Finally analytical expressions are proposed for the spatial and temporal parts of the longitudinal correlation coefficient function. These are scaled using the integral space and time scales of the velocity and Reynolds stress fields, and excellent agreement is found with experimentally determined functions.Nomenclature  c_o  Sound speed - D  Exit nozzle diameter - f, f  Spatial correlation function - g, g  Temporal correlation function - f_St  Frequency based Strouhal number - _i  2nd-order integral length scales in i-th direction -  4th-order integral length scales in i-th direction - M_c  Convective Mach number - M_j Jet exit Mach number - q Quantity q evaluated at location y into the flow -  Time average of the quantity q - r Radial distance from the jet exit - r_0.5  Radial location of the shear layer axis - r* Normalised radial coordinate - r_ij Second-order velocity correlation - r_ijkl Fourth-order velocity correlation - St Jet Strouhal number - U_c Convective velocity - U_e Subsonic coflow velocity - U_j Jet exit velocity - U_i Mean part of u_i - u_i Local velocity in i-th direction - u_ti Fluctuating part of u_i - x Distance from the exit nozzle - y Location test point - _i Variance of the velocity component u_i - _ij Variance of the velocity product u_iu_j -  Constant value - _ij Kronecker delta - _c Shear layer thickness - t_i Interarrival time between two ldv samples -  Separation distance in the moving pattern (components _i ) -  Polynomial function -  Separation distance in the fixed pattern (components _i ) -  Time delay -  2nd-order time scale in the fixed pattern -  2nd-order time scale in the moving pattern -  4th-order time scale in the fixed pattern -  4th-order time scale in the moving pattern -  Typical radian frequency where

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On elevated RMS levels in wall-bounded turbulent flows when measured by laser Doppler velocimetry

Several recent studies have shown elevated RMS velocities in laser Doppler measurements of wall bounded shear flows. We show here, through a simple model, that vibration of the probe volume is a likely contributor to these elevated values.     

Effects of coincidence window and measuring volume size on laser Doppler velocimetry measurement of turbulence

The effects of coincidence window and measuring volume size on two-component laser velocimeter measurement of turbulence in an isothermal liquid flow through a concentric annular channel were studied. Three different coincidence windows (100–500 μs) and three different measuring volume sizes (diameter, 5–9 wall units; spanwise length, 24–91 wall units) were used in a flow of Reynolds number 31,500 and data density spanning the high end of intermediate to the low end of high (3–6). While no significant effects of the coincidence window and measuring volume size were found on the time-mean velocity and turbulence intensities, the streamwise Reynolds shear stress measured near a wall was found to be markedly affected by both. The smallest feasible measuring volume along with an appropriate coincidence window provides good measurement of the shear stress. Received: 8 September 1999/Accepted: 11 July 2000     

Stick-slip flow of high density polyethylene in a transparent slit die investigated by laser Doppler velocimetry

The oscillating flow instability of a molten linear high-density polyethylene is carefully studied using a single screw extruder equipped with a transparent slit die. Experiments are performed using laser Doppler velocimetry in order to obtain the local velocities field across the entire die width. At low flow rate, the extrusion is stable and steady state velocity profiles are obtained. During the instability, the velocity oscillates between two steady state limits, suggesting a periodic stick-slip transition mechanism. At high flow rate, the flow is mainly characterized by a pronounced wall slip. We show that wall slip occurs all along the die land. An investigation of the slip flow conditions shows that wall slip is not homogeneous in a cross section of the slit die, and that pure plug flow occurs only for very high flow rates. A numerical computation of the profile assuming wall slip boundary conditions is done to obtain the true local wall slip velocity. It confirms that slip velocities are of the same order of magnitude as those measured with a capillary rheometer.     

Measurements of velocity spectra using time-resolving Doppler global velocimetry with laser frequency modulation and a detector array

Measuring velocity spectra in turbulent flows requires methods providing a high temporal resolution and a low measurement uncertainty. Hot-wire anemometry is often used, but it is intrusive. Laser Doppler anemometry is non-intrusive, but due to the statistical arrival of individual tracers provides no constant measurement rate. We therefore propose the use of Doppler global velocimetry (DGV), which is a contactless method allowing temporally equidistant measurements of continuous signals. Additionally, 2d measurements are possible instead of single point measurements. The commonly applied slow cameras are substituted by a fibre coupled detector array consisting of 25 avalanche photo diodes, which increases temporal resolution up to 10 μs. Contrarily to conventional DGV, a sinusoidal laser frequency modulation enables omitting the reference detector array. A correction of beam splitting and image misalignment errors is thus not necessary, but disturbances due to temporal fluctuations of the scattered light can occur and have to be reduced by increasing the modulation frequency. We validate the proposed system capability of synchronously measuring velocity spectra at multiple points in turbulent flows by presenting experimental results. The acquired velocity spectra in a wind tunnel experiment show good agreement with hot-wire comparison measurements within 0.1 m/s. An uncertainty analysis is given, which allows the achievable measurement uncertainty to be estimated as a function of the desired temporal resolution. An uncertainty down to 0.2 m/s can, for example, be achieved assuming a desired temporal resolution of 1 ms. These promising results open new perspectives for turbulence and correlation studies in flows such as to investigate the turbulence characteristics behind a truncated cylinder attached to a plate or the inlet of an aircraft turbine for flow characterisation in industry.     

Smoothing and statistical evaluation of laser Doppler velocimetry data of turbulent flows in rotating and reciprocating machinery

 Arbitrarily time-distributed velocity information acquired by laser Doppler velocimeter systems needs special care when evaluated wrt. the mean velocity and the components of the Reynolds stress tensor. In rotating machinery, the arrival time information can be uniquely mapped to the angular position ϕ of the runner blades by using encoder signals relating a fixed runner position to an arrival time. It is convenient to statistically evaluate the velocity information of the detected particles in an angular window [ϕ₀−Δϕ/2,ϕ₀+Δϕ/2] in order to obtain mean velocities and turbulence values for an angular position ϕ₀. This approach has the inconvenience that turbulence values calculated from standard deviations are influenced by a possible variation in the mean velocity in the evaluation window. Other problems that arise with this “evaluation window” method are the influence of unevenly angular-distributed velocity information on the mean velocity or the poor resolution of maxima and minima of the mean velocity, which is similar to the problem pointed out by Jakoby et al. but being of second-order nature. In this paper, different improvements in the “evaluation window” method wrt these problems based on ideas found in a paper by McDonald and Owen are presented. A confidence interval calculation, generalizing the methods of Boutier, for all calculated values is included, which allows an appropriate window size Δϕ to be chosen for each particular situation. The different methods are compared using examples from wake flows of axial hydraulic turbomachinery measured in air and water. Received: 7 July 1999/Accepted: 18 November 1999