Turbulent flow around a surface-mounted obstacle using 2D-3C DPIV

The mean turbulent flow structure around a cube mounted on the surface of an open-surface water channel was studied using a two-dimensional implementation of digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV). The out-of-plane velocity component was obtained by the use of the concept of continuity applied to two-dimensional velocity fields recorded in parallel planes. Various methods were used for the identification and localization of large-scale vortical structures in the three-dimensional flow around the surface-mounted obstacle. The results show the feasibility of its application to three-dimensional PIV data and the superior performance of recent identification techniques (namely swirling strength and normalized angular momentum), over the classical vorticity-based criterion.