Unsteady separated flows - Novel experimental approach

Abstract

A novel experimental technique, commonly referred to as laser speckle velocimetry or particle image displacement velocimetry (PIDV), is developed for the measurement of instantaneous velocity fields in unsteady and steady flows. The main advantage of this technique is the fact that the velocity field is measured with sufficient accuracy so that the distribution of vorticity can be calculated with accuracy. The PIDV technique, which is ideally suited for the study of unsteady separated flows, has been utilized to measure the development of the separated flow field generated by a high angle-of-attack (alpha = 30 deg) NACA 0012 airfoil, started impulsively from rest.