Abstract
Flow visualization techniques provide valuable information about behavior of fluid flow, however they are unsuitable for quantitative analysis. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) based on flow visualization has become a well-established technique for the quantitative analysis of velocity field in a two dimensional region of fluid flow. In principle the technique records two superimposed images of particles within the flow on a photographic film and multi-point velocity vectors can be deduced from the displacement of the particles within small interrogation region. The recording process for particle image velocimetry is a time consuming job because of chemical processing to develop a doubly exposed photograph. Since a liquid crystal display has the function of spatial light modulator just like a photographic film, the particle image velocimetry with a liquid crystal display and an image processor for recording and composing images was constructed in this study. In order to confirm the performance of the velocimetry, fundamental analyses of image recording and sequential optical processing were presented using a model pattern and using steady flow of water in a flow channel.
