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A novel configuration of focused laser differential interferometry (FLDI) was developed, simulated, and tested. The new configuration is referred to as cylindrical FLDI or CFLDI. Using cylindrical ...

In experimental fluid dynamics, it would be invaluable to have solids with a refractive index similar to that of water, hence simplifying the use of existing facilities to study flows around complex geometries. Here we report a polymer that is refractive-index-matched with water at room temperature and can be cast in thick specimens. We successfully demonstrated its use with three common laser-based diagnostics: laser-induced fluorescence, particle image velocimetry, and molecular tagging velocimetry.

Molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) is a nonintrusive optical diagnostic with typically three variants in liquids distinguished by the dye that they rely on: phosphorescent, photochromic, or caged. The latter scheme, initially called photo-activated nonintrusive tracking of molecular motion (PHANTOMM), required both a UV and a dedicated blue laser. Here, we demonstrate caged-dye-based MTV with pulsed UV and green lasers for the first time, simplifying its deployment in most experimental fluid dynamics laboratories.

Femtosecond laser electronic excitation tagging (FLEET) is a nonintrusive optical diagnostic technique that has been demonstrated to provide direct measurement of velocity and other transport prope...

Selective two-photon absorptive resonance femtosecond laser electronic excitation tagging (STARFLEET) velocimetry is demonstrated for the first time in a NASA Langley Research Center wind tunnel wi...

Various physical principles can be utilized for molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV). In this article, the capabilities and limitations of photoisomerization in MTV are studied. The molecular rotor 9-(2-carboxy-2-cyanovinyl)julolidine (CCVJ) exists in two isomers. Although the E isomer, which is present in the absence of light, yields a fluorescent behavior, the Z isomer is a photoproduct with no detectable luminescence. This regenerative behavior is utilized for MTV. The two time constants define the experimental limitations of the method for tagging and recovery. It is shown that, whereas the tagging time constant is in the range of milliseconds to seconds, the recovery time is in the range of minutes to hours, enabling measurements of slow flow phenomena. A flow in a rectangular channel with a Reynolds number of 9×10−3 and a Péclet number of 1009 is investigated. Furthermore, the addition of methyl-β-cyclodextrin (methyl-β-CD) to the solution increases the fluorescent quantum yield and the isomeric rate constants, supporting the hypothesis of a complex formation with CCVJ. It is shown that photoisomeric MTV is suitable for analyzing slow flow regimes in the liquid phase. The addition of methyl-β-CD increases the dynamic range of the results. In comparison with existing MTV principles, photoisomerization has the advantage of an intrinsic regenerative behavior. The cost-efficient and simple setup make it an alternative in biological and environmental flow studies., Physical Review Fluids, 6 (4), ISSN:2469-990X

The present study focuses on the collapse length of compressible rectangular microjets whose Mach numbers range between 0.3 and 1.5. The microjets are created from a convergent rectangular nozzle whose height is 500 μm at its exit. The techniques of planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) and molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) are used to visualize the microjets. The PLIF images reveal that each microjet spreads abruptly at a certain location. It is confirmed from the instantaneous MTV images that this location corresponds to the location where the jet starts to collapse. The jet collapse length, which is defined as a distance between the nozzle exit and jet collapse location, is estimated from the PLIF image. The plot of the collapse length versus the jet Reynolds number reveals that the collapse length is inversely proportional to the Reynolds number for subsonic and ideally expanded microjets. On the other hand, the collapse length for underexpanded microjets is almost uniform when the jet Reynolds number is higher than a certain value (~ 103) although the length is inversely proportional to the Reynolds number for the lower Reynolds numbers. To clarify the reason why such peculiarities appear in the underexpanded microjets, the numerical flow simulations are carried out. The results reveal that the collapse length remains constant as long as a jet screech occurs. Consequently, the collapse length of the screeching jet is related to the feedback length in the jet. The critical Reynolds numbers at which laminar-turbulent transition occurs are estimated from the collapse lengths of the microjets without screeching and plotted against the convective Mach number. It is found that the critical Reynolds number increases with the convective Mach number.

Helium-4 in the superfluid phase (He II) is a two-fluid system that exhibits fascinating quantum hydrodynamics with important scientific and engineering applications. However, the lack of high-precision flow measurement tools in He II has impeded the progress in understanding and utilizing its hydrodynamics. In recent years, there have been extensive efforts in developing quantitative flow visualization techniques applicable to He II. In particular, a powerful molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) technique, based on tracking thin lines of He$^*_2$ excimer molecules created via femtosecond laser-field ionization in helium, has been developed in our lab. This technique allows unambiguous measurement of the normal-fluid velocity field in the two-fluid system. Nevertheless, there are two limitations of this technique: 1) only the velocity component perpendicular to the tracer line can be measured; and 2) there is an inherent error in determining the perpendicular velocity. In this paper, we discuss how these issues can be resolved by advancing the MTV technique. We also discuss two novel schemes for tagging and producing He$^*_2$ tracers. The first method allows the creation of a tagged He$^*_2$ tracer line without the use of an expensive femtosecond laser. The second method enables full-space velocity field measurement through tracking small clouds of He$^*_2$ molecules created via neutron-$^3$He absorption reactions in He II., 15 pages, 6 figures

Molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) is a non intrusive velocimetry technique based on laser spectroscopy. It is particularly adequate in challenging gas flow conditions encountered in thermal hydraulics where particle-based methods such as particle image (or tracking) velocimetry do not perform well. The main principles for designing and operating this diagnostic are presented as well as a set of gases that have been identified as potential seeds. Two gases (H2O and N2O) have been characterized extensively for thermodynamic conditions ranging from standard temperature and pressure to environments encountered in integral effect test (IET) facilities for high temperature gas reactors (HTGR). A flexible, modular, and trans- portable laser system has been designed and demonstrated with H2O and N2O seed gases. The laser system enabled to determine the optimum excitation wavelength, tracer concentration, and timing parameters. Velocity precision and thermodynamic domain of applicability are discussed for both tracers. The spectroscopic nature of the diagnostics enables to perform first principle uncertainty analysis which makes it attractive for validating numerical models. MTV is demonstrated for two flows. First, in blow down tests with H2O seed, the unique laser system enables one of the largest dynamic ranges reported to date for velocimetry: 5,000:1 (74 dB). N2O-MTV is then deployed in-situ in an IET, the high-temperature test facility at Oregon State University during a depressurized condition cooldown (DCC) event. Data enable to gain insights into flow instabilities present during DCC. Thus, MTV shows a strong potential to gain fundamental understanding of gas flows in nuclear thermal hydraulics and to provide validation data for numerical solvers.

Objectives: To provide comprehensive literature survey of laminar separation bubble over a low Reynolds number airfoil with reference to the conventional and non-conventional experimental technique using wind tunnel. Methods/ Statistical Analysis: For more convenient understanding, the various wind tunnel experimental techniques and advanced research progress in this field is presenting in table format. The table shows characteristics of laminar separation bubble over airfoil at different Reynolds number for various conditions. The table critiques the proof-based entire data about the Laminar Separation Bubble (LSB) traits (height and period), go with the flow traits differentiated, transition and reattachment locations and go with the flow visualization over airfoil were experimentally discovered at various angles of attack and Reynolds range, respectively. Findings: The current evidence supports the view that laminar separation bubble characteristics, behaviour and its effect over an airfoil. Most studies in this field have been done experimentally using Wind Tunnel with various techniques i.e., Surface Oil Flow Technique, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Infrared Thermography (IT), Force Measurement and Hot-Wire Experiments, Smoke-Wire Experiment, Multi-line Molecular Tagging Velocimetry, Volumetric Three-Component Velocimetry (V3V), Time-resolved surface pressure sensor arrays, ESP (Electronically Scanned Pressure), Embedded Laser Doppler Velocimetry (ELDV), Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Application/ Improvements: This paper describes the various techniques and characteristics of LSB which will be beneficial to design the low Reynolds number airfoil in order to minimize the drag and increases the aerodynamic efficiency for industrial applications. Keywords: Flow Visualization Techniques, Low Reynolds Number, Laminar Separation Bubble Characteristics, Wind Tunnel Experiments

Femtosecond laser electronic excitation tagging (FLEET) is a new non-seed molecular tagging velocity measurement method. Fluorescent light excited by femtosecond laser is used as tagging filament, and will disturb local temperature which may affect the flow field measurement precision. In this paper, the Rayleigh scattered of nanosecond laser is used to measure the ambient air temperature changing. The feasibility of this measurement method is proved. The key data processing of low signal to noise ratio (SNR) images including the filament segmentation, noise filtering, skeleton extraction of filament position is tested. The preliminary test on the heating process between 1us and 800us is demonstrated. The limitations of this measurement method due to the gas media condition changing are discussed briefly.

A novel, to the best of our knowledge, optical arrangement is evaluated for performing single-shot femtosecond laser electronic excitation tagging in a 16-point grid (Grid-FLEET) with single-ended optical access. The optical arrangement includes a diffractive optical element beam splitter to produce a grid of laser beams in a simplified, flexible, and efficient manner for tracer-free multi-component molecular tagging velocimetry in a two-dimensional field. Analysis of the optical element with respect to beam forming is described, and Grid-FLEET measurements are evaluated relative to the precision of previously described single-point FLEET measurements using Lagrangian tracking for flow in a laminar jet and around a sharp corner. Utilizing a conventional 1-kHz laser source coupled to a high-speed intensified camera, it is also feasible to achieve measurement rates of 100 kHz or higher by mapping the Lagrangian grid to one or more Eulerian measurement points. The data further indicate that enhancement of the instantaneous vector fields and spatial velocity gradients can be analyzed to enhance the understanding of multi-dimensional flow physics in applications in which the use of tracers may be difficult and where multi-directional optical access may be limited.

Molecular tagging velocimetry is a little-intrusive technique based on the properties of specific molecules able to emit luminescence once properly excited. Several variants of this technique have been successfully developed for analyzing external gas flows or internal gas flows in large systems. There is, however, very few experimental data on molecular tagging velocimetry for gas flows in mini or microsystems, and these data are strongly affected by the molecular diffusion of the tracer molecules. In the present paper, it is demonstrated that the velocity field in gas microflows cannot be directly deduced from the measured displacement field without taking into account Taylor dispersion effects. For that purpose, the benchmark case of a Poiseuille gas flow through a rectangular channel 960 μm in depth is experimentally investigated by micro molecular tagging velocimetry using acetone vapor as a molecular tracer. An appropriate reconstruction method based on the advection diffusion equation is used to process the data and to correctly extract the velocity profiles. The comparison of measured velocities with flowrate data and with theoretical velocity profiles shows a good agreement, whereas when the reconstruction method is not implemented, the extracted velocity field exhibits qualitative and quantitative anomalies, such as a non-physical slip at the walls. The robustness of the reconstruction method is demonstrated on flows with light and heavy molecular species, namely helium and argon, at atmospheric as well as at lower pressure conditions, for which diffusion effects are stronger. The obtained results represent an encouraging step for future analysis of rarefied gas microflows.

A new scheme is described and characterized to generate very fine structured illumination patterns that can be used to significantly improve the spatial resolution of molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) and other techniques that rely on structured illumination. MTV is particularly suited to measure spatial gradients of velocity as well as second-order derivatives, but has traditionally suffered from a limited resolution. MTV has gained a broad adoption in high-speed gas dynamics and has also been applied to a lesser extent in aqueous flows. The present work makes use of the optical Talbot effect, a near-field diffraction phenomenon, to generate an array of quasi-parallel beamlets with very flexible beam spacing and diameter. Both pitch and width have been demonstrated down to the order of 10 $${\upmu \mathrm {m}}$$, which is about ten times smaller than that performed in previous MTV studies. Structured illumination with Talbot effect has potential for even smaller sizes. Several parameters are extensively characterized, including beamlet size, spacing, and persistence. Optimization of the optical components is also discussed, including lasers and lenses. Simple analytical models enable to assist in the design of experiments with Talbot effect. The technique is demonstrated with 1D multi-line and 2D grids with simple MTV tests in water. The selected caged dye is used for the first time in MTV and conveniently enables the use of green PIV lasers to read the tagged lines.

International audience; Direct measurements of the slip velocity in rarefied gas flows produced by local thermodynamic non-equilibrium at the wall represent crucial information for the validation of existing theoretical and numerical models. In this work, molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) by direct phosphorescence is applied to argon and helium flows at low pressures in a 1-mm deep channel. MTV has provided accurate measurements of the molecular displacement of the gas at average pressures of the order of 1 kPa. To the best of our knowledge, this work reports the very first flow visualizations of a gas in a confined domain and in the slip flow regime, with Knudsen numbers up to 0.014. MTV is cross-validated with mass flowrate measurements by the constant volume technique. The two diagnostic methods are applied simultaneously, and the measurements in terms of average velocity at the test section are in good agreement. Moreover, preliminary results of the slip velocity at the wall are computed from the MTV data by means of a reconstruction method.

To gain insight into the roll wave instability in particulate flow systems, the spatiotemporal velocities of particle and liquid phases in a clear-fluid layer are simultaneously measured by means of a photobleaching molecular tagging velocimetry (PB-MTV). A grid pattern tag is generated by intermittent irradiation of two intense laser beams, which facilitates measurement of a wall vicinity flow induced by the Boycott effect. To cope with a plurality of tagline intersections, which largely deform in shear flows, a novel spatial correlation technique is developed with a template-matching method. A priori study using artificial images of tags in a temporally oscillating flow is performed to examine the effects of the signal to noise (S/N) ratio and the degree of unsteadiness on the accuracy of the velocimetry. An experimental validation of the present PB-MTV is also conducted on the statistical values of the streamwise velocity through comparison with a laser-induced fluorescence and particle tracking velocimetry (LIF-PTV). A series of experiments are carried out using a suspension, which consists of tap water and spherical hollow light particles, varying the particle diameter and the particle volume fraction. The liquid velocity fluctuation tends to increase with decrease in the inter-particle distance compared to the thickness of the clear-fluid layer. We conclude that the roll wave instability occurs only under the fluid-like condition, where the suspension behaves as a continuum, and is affected by the sharpness of flow stratification between the clear-fluid and particle-rich phases.

A dual-dye-laser Laser-induced Fluorescence (LIF) system is established for flow field investigations in JF-10, a H 2 /O 2 -detonation-driven shock tunnel. The shock tunnel generates 400 mm-wide hypersonic flow with total enthalpy of 16.1 MJ/kg and static pressure at only105Pa, where LIF measurement is extremely challenging. In this LIF system, the laser sheet of a conventional planar LIF is rotated 90 degrees along its propagation direction, so that the fluorescence signal collected by the camera concentrates on a sharp line. The S/N ratio is increased, thus single-shot measurements are achievable. The rotational temperature of the flow measured by two-line thermometry (TLT) with simultaneous excitation of two $\gamma$ (0,0) transitions of NO at distinct rotational levels. Compared with single-dye-laser set-up, the current system is less affected by the fluctuation of the flow field from each facility operation, thus capable of reflect the dramatic temperature change across the shock layer. With precise control of the proper of the laser, and through evaluation of the error of the data, the temperature measurement and numerical simulation in the flow is consistent. Meanwhile, the velocity of the flow is measured by molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) with a long-life fluorescence excitation, and the result agrees with the expected value. The UV LIF technique is proven useful in flow diagnostics in high-enthalpy regime.

We present the development of molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) capability for the NASA Zero Boil-Off Tank (ZBOT) experiment. The challenges of chemical solubility posed by the fluorocarbon working fluid and small range of velocities in the experiment are met using MTV based on the photobleaching of coumarin-153. The feasibility of measurements is demonstrated by one-component velocimetry (1c-MTV) in a setup with geometric characteristics that mimic the actual ZBOT test section.

While photobleaching can be detrimental in applications focusing on fluorescence as it lowers the signal strength, it can advantageously provide non-fluorescent tracers in a fluorescent flow and hence be implemented in tracking techniques such as molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV). The photobleaching of rhodamine 6G under a single UV pulse is described with a simple three-level model of fluorescence. It offers a convenient estimate of the order of magnitude of irradiance required to observe significant photobleaching for a uniform beam. In an effort to improve the application to MTV, analytical formulas enable to determine the photobleached signal strength from a Gaussian UV laser beam overlapping with a green laser sheet and imaged from the side, as well as the apparent width of the imaged photobleached line.

Detailed characterizations of picosecond laser electronic excitation tagging (PLEET) in pure nitrogen ( N 2 ) and air with a 24 ps burst-mode laser system have been conducted. The burst-mode laser system is seeded with a 200 fs broadband seeding laser to achieve short pulse duration. As a non-intrusive molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) technique, PLEET achieves “writing” via photo-dissociating nitrogen molecules and “tracking” by imaging the molecular nitrogen emissions. Key characteristics and performance of utilization of a 24 ps pulse-burst laser for MTV were obtained, including lifetime of the nitrogen emissions, power dependence, pressure dependence, and local flow heating by the laser pulses. Based on the experimental results and physical mechanisms of PLEET, 24 ps PLEET can produce similar 100 kHz molecular nitrogen emissions by photodissociation, while generating less flow disturbance by reducing laser joule heating than 100 ps PLEET.

Biacetyl phosphorescence has been the commonly used molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) technique to investigate in-cylinder flow evolution and cycle-to-cycle variations in an optical engine. As the phosphorescence of biacetyl tracer deteriorates in the presence of oxygen, nitrogen was adopted as the working medium in the past. Recently, nitrous oxide MTV technique was employed to measure the velocity profile of an air jet. The authors here plan to investigate the potential application of this technique for engine flow studies. A possible experimental setup for this task indicated different permutations of image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and laser line width. In the current work, a numerical analysis is performed to study the effect of these two factors on displacement error in MTV image processing. Also, several image filtering techniques were evaluated and the performance of selected filters was analyzed in terms of enhancing the image quality and minimizing displacement errors. The flow displacement error without image preprocessing was observed to be inversely proportional to SNR and directly proportional to laser line width. The mean filter resulted in the smallest errors for line widths smaller than 9 pixels. The effect of filter size on subpixel accuracy showed that error levels increased as the filter size increased.

A computer mouse has been modified for use as a low-cost laser Doppler interferometer and used to measure the two-component fluid velocity of a flowing soap film. The mouse sensor contains two vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, photodiodes, and signal processing hardware integrated into a single package, approximately 1 cm2 in size, and interfaces to a host computer via a standard USB port. Using the principle of self-mixing interferometry, whereby laser light re-enters the laser cavity after being scattered from a moving target, the Doppler shift and velocity of scatterers dispersed in the flow are measured. Observations of the boundary layer in a turbulent soap film channel flow demonstrate the capabilities of the sensor.

Superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities cooled by superfluid 4He (He II) are building blocks of many modern particle accelerators due to their high quality factor. However, Joule heating from sub-millimeter surface defects on cavities can lead to cavity quenching, which limits the maximum acceleration gradient of the accelerators. Developing a non-contacting detection technology to accurately locate these surface hot spots is the key to improve the performance of SRF cavities and hence the accelerators. In a recent proof-of-concept experiment (Phys. Rev. Applied, 11, 044003 (2019)), we demonstrated that a molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) technique based on the tracking of a He 2 * molecular tracer line created nearby a surface hot spot in He II can be utilized to locate the hot spot. In order to make this technique practically useful, here we describe our further development of a stereoscopic MTV setup for tracking the tracer line’s motion in three-dimensional (3D) space. We simulate a quench spot by applying a transient voltage pulse to a small heater mounted on a substrate plate. Images of the drifted tracer line, taken with two cameras from orthogonal directions, are used to reconstruct the line profile in 3D space. A new algorithm for analyzing the 3D line profile is developed, which incorporates the finite size effect of the heater. We show that the center location of the heater can be reproduced on the substrate surface with an uncertainty of only a few hundred microns, thereby proving the practicability of this method.

Streamwise velocity profiles and their wall-normal derivatives were used to investigate the properties of turbulent channel flow in the low polymer drag reduction (DR) regime, \(DR = 6.5\)–\(26\%\). Streamwise velocity data were obtained over a friction Reynolds number ranging from 650 to 1800 using the single velocity component version of molecular tagging velocimetry (1c-MTV). This adaptation of the MTV technique has the ability to accurately capture instantaneous profiles at very high spatial resolution, and thus generate well-resolved derivative information as well. Owing to this ability, the present study is able to build upon and extend the recent numerical simulation analysis of White et al. [6] that examined the mean dynamical structure of polymer drag reduced channel flow at friction Reynolds numbers up to 1000.

A novel velocimetry method is proposed for point velocity measurement, which is based on tracking a laser-induced plasma in a flow. The plasma’s behaviour is first analysed spatially, temporally and spectrally in quiescent air. The dependence of this technique on the delay time between subsequent plasma images and the processing methods are described. It is found that, for optimized operation of the technique in a turbulent air jet (exit diameter 10.0 mm from a 480 mm long pipe; with an averaged velocity of 50 m/s at the jet exit resulting in Reynolds number of 34,000) with 100 µs time delay between plasma images, the systematic and random components of the velocity uncertainty are − 0.51 m/s and ± 3.6 m/s along the laser beam direction, and 1.25 m/s and ± 0.86 m/s along other directions perpendicular to the laser beam. These uncertainties are mainly caused by the asymmetric laser energy deposition during the formation of plasma, and the associated spatial resolution (in this realisation of the instrument) of 5 mm. The mean velocity measurements in the turbulent air jet flow are consistent with the reported flow behaviour in the literature for mean velocity: the turbulent intensity of axial velocity fluctuations is comparable to those in the literature but difference arises due to the limited spatial resolution. This velocimetry method is an alternative to traditional tracer-based velocimetry methods, because it does not require ‘seeding’ of particles or other substances in the flow. It also has the ability to measure local gas mixture composition, using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy approach, simultaneously with flow velocity, but this aspect is not explored in the current study. Concept of Laser-Induced Plasma Image Velocimetry (LIPIV) applied to a turbulent jet flow. The LIPIV technique measures the flow velocity vector by using the temporal displacement of the laser-induced plasma in a flowing fluid. For this reason, two sequential images of the plasma with time delay Δt are used.

International audience; Rarefied gas flows have a central role in microfluidic devices for many applications in various scientific fields. Local thermodynamic non-equilibrium at the wall-gas interface produces macroscopic effects, one of which is a velocity slip between the gas flow and the solid surface. Local experimental data able to shed light on this physical phenomenon are very limited in the literature. The molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) could be a suitable technique for measuring velocity fields in gas micro flows. However, the implementation of this technique in the case of confined and rarefied gas flows is a difficult task: the reduced number of molecules in the system, which induces high diffusion, and the low concentration of the molecular tracer both drastically reduce the intensity and the duration of the exploitable signal for carrying out the velocity measures. This work demonstrates that the application of the 1D-MTV by direct phosphorescence to gas flows in the slip flow regime and in a rectangular long channel is, actually, possible. New experimental data on phosphorescence emission of acetone and diacetyl vapors at low pressures are presented. An analysis of the optimal excitation wavelength is carried out to maximize the intensity and the lifetime of the tracer emission. The experimental results demonstrate that a little concentration of about 5-10 % of acetone vapor excited at 310 nm or of diacetyl vapor excited at 410 nm in a helium mixture at pressures on the order of 1 kPa provides an intense and durable luminescent signal. In a 1-mm deep channel, a gas flow characterized by these thermodynamic conditions is in the slip flow regime. Moreover, numerical experiments based on DSMC simulations are carried out to demonstrate that an accurate measurement of the velocity profile in a laminar pressure-driven flow is possible for the rarefied conditions of interest.

The interaction of vortex rings with thin wire mesh screens is investigated using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV). The existence of vortex shedding from individual wires of the porous screens, suggested by prior works, is shown and compared to flow visualization results. A range of interaction Reynolds numbers and screen porosities are studied to determine the conditions affecting the interaction. Transmitted vortex (TV) ring formation is shown to be a function of vortex shedding and the shedding Reynolds number, but not a function of porosity. Screen porosity is shown to affect the TV convective speed but did not impact the formation behaviors. Three major flow regimes existed for the interaction: TV formation with no vortex shedding, TV formation with visible vortex shedding, and no downstream formation with strong shed vortices.

Numerical simulations of the gas-seeding strategies required for planar laser-induced fluorescence in a Mach 10 (approximately Mach 8.2 postshock) airflow were performed. The work was performed to understand and quantify the adverse effects associated with gas seeding and to assess various types of seed gas that could potentially be used in future experiments. In prior experiments, NO and NO2 were injected through a slot near the leading edge of a flat-plate wedge model used in NASA Langley Research Center’s 31 in. Mach 10 air tunnel facility. In this paper, nitric oxide, krypton, and iodine gases were simulated at various injection rates. Simulations showing the deflection of the velocity boundary layer for each of the cases are presented. Streamwise distributions of velocity and concentration boundary-layer thicknesses, as well as vertical distributions of velocity, temperature, and mass distributions, are presented for each of the cases. A comparison between simulated streamwise velocity profiles and e...

Simulations of gas seeding into a hypersonic boundary-layer flow were performed using OpenFOAM® to investigate and quantify errors associated with quantitative planar laser-induced fluorescence thermometry and velocimetry techniques. A modified version of the compressible rhoCentralFoam solver was used to simulate multicomponent chemically reactive flows. Simulations replicated conditions used in NASA Langley Research Center’s 31 in. Mach 10 facility with a wedge model oriented at various angles of attack with respect to the freestream flow in the test section. Adverse chemistry effects from the reaction of nitric oxide with molecular oxygen were investigated at various facility running conditions. Specifically, the effect of heat release on velocity and temperature profiles that would be obtained using the nonintrusive laser measurement techniques was assessed. The effect of any potential adverse chemistry reactions was found to be negligible.

The molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) is a well-suited technique for velocity field measurement in gas flows. Typically, a line is tagged by a laser beam within the gas flow seeded with light emitting acetone molecules. Positions of the luminescent molecules are then observed at successive times and the velocity field is deduced from the analysis of the tagged line displacement and deformation. However, the displacement evolution is expected to be affected by molecular diffusion, when the gas is rarefied. Therefore, there is no direct and simple relationship between the velocity field and the measured displacement of the initial tagged line. This paper addresses the study of tracer molecules diffusion through a background gas flowing in a channel delimited by planar walls. Tracer and background species are supposed to be governed by a system of coupled Boltzmann equations, numerically solved by the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. Simulations confirm that the diffusion of tracer species becomes significant as the degree of rarefaction of the gas flow increases. It is shown that a simple advection–diffusion equation provides an accurate description of tracer molecules behavior, in spite of the non-equilibrium state of the background gas. A simple reconstruction algorithm based on the advection–diffusion equation has been developed to obtain the velocity profile from the displacement field. This reconstruction algorithm has been numerically tested on DSMC generated data. Results help estimating an upper bound on the flow rarefaction degree, above which MTV measurements might become problematic.

High spatial resolution measurements of local flow velocities and temperature distributions are crucial for understanding turbulent, high-speed, and reacting flows. In this paper, we demonstrate that femtosecond laser electronic excitation tagging, a recently developed molecular tagging velocimetry method, can also be used to simultaneously measure temperature. A 150 femtosecond pulse populates excited molecular nitrogen states, driving significant emission from the nitrogen second positive and first negative systems. Spectroscopy of this emission allows temperature to be determined from the distribution of rotational molecular energy. Temperature profiles are measured with better than 10% uncertainty and 500 μm spatial resolution between 300 and 650 K in heated jets. This method is expected to be valid up to at least 2000 K. Femtosecond laser electronic excitation tagging temperature and velocity measurements involve separate nitrogen transitions and can be conducted simultaneously without interference.

The effects of light-driven enhancement of Evans Blue dye complexes with blood plasma proteins were observed for the first time, both in vitro and in vivo. The possible background of the effect concerns the photochemical cis-trans isomerization of the azo dye molecules. The effect was induced in the solution with a red laser with a wavelength of 638 nm, which corresponds to the peak of the dye absorption. The lifetime of the enhanced fluorescence is approximately 1 second and enables its use as an optically tagged molecular flow tracer for blood flow velocity measurements. Utilizing the effect, we performed for the first time the intravital molecular tagging velocimetry of the blood velocity in blood vessels in a living animal. The results of the measurements of the blood flow velocities in the cerebral veins of a group of healthy mice are presented.

Proceedings 18th International Symposium on Flow Visualization

A molecular tagging velocity (MTV) technique is developed to non-intrusively measure velocity in an integral effect test (IET) facility simulating a high temperature helium-cooled nuclear reactor in accident scenarios. In these scenarios, the velocities are expected to be low, on the order of 1 m/s or less, which forces special requirements on the MTV tracer selection. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is identified as a suitable seed gas to generate NO tracers capable of probing the flow over a large range of pressure, temperature, and flow velocity. The performance of N2O-MTV is assessed in the laboratory at temperature and pressure ranging from 295 to 781 K and 1 to 3 atm. MTV signal improves with a temperature increase, but decreases with a pressure increase. Velocity precision down to 0.004 m/s is achieved with a probe time of 40 ms at ambient pressure and temperature. Measurement precision is limited by tracer diffusion, and absorption of the tag laser beam by the seed gas. Processing by cross-correlation of single shot images with high signal-to-noise ratio reference images improves the precision by about 10% compared to traditional single shot image correlations. The instrument is then deployed to the IET facility. Challenges associated with heat, vibrations, safety, beam delivery, and imaging are addressed in order to successfully operate this sensitive instrument in-situ. Data are presented for an isothermal depressurized conduction cool-down. Velocity profiles from MTV reveal a complex flow transient driven by buoyancy, diffusion, and instability taking place over short ( 30 min) time-scales at sub-meter per second speed. The precision of the in-situ results is estimated at 0.027, 0.0095, and 0.006 m/s for a probe time of 5, 15, and 35 ms, respectively.

Femtosecond laser electronic excitation tagging (FLEET) velocimetry was used to study the flowfield around a symmetric, transonic airfoil in the NASA Langley 0.3-m TCT facility. A nominal Mach number of 0.85 was investigated with a total pressure of 125 kPa and total temperature of 280 K. Two-components of velocity were measured along vertical profiles at different locations above, below, and aft of the airfoil at angles of attack of 0°, 3.5°, and 7°. Velocity profiles within the wake showed sufficient accuracy, precision, and sensitivity to resolve both the mean and fluctuating velocities and general flow physics such as shear layer growth. Evidence of flow separation is found at high angles of attack. Velocity measurements were assessed for their accuracy, precision, dynamic range, spatial resolution, and overall measurement uncertainty as they relate to the present experiments. Measurement precisions as low as 1 m/s were observed, while the velocity dynamic range was found to be nearly a factor of 500. The spatial resolution of between 1 mm and 5 mm was found to be primarily limited by the FLEET spot size and advection of the flow. Overall measurement uncertainties ranged from 3 to 4 percent.

Physical interpretations and especially analytical considerations benefit from the ability to accurately estimate derivatives of experimentally measured statistical profiles. Toward this aim, experiments were conducted to investigate the efficacy of single-component molecular tagging velocimetry (1c-MTV) to measure mean velocity profiles that can be differentiated multiple times. Critical effects here pertain to finite measurement uncertainty in the presence of high spatial resolution. Measurements acquired in fully developed turbulent channel flow over a friction Reynolds number range from 390 to 1800 are used to investigate these issues. Each measured profile contains about 880 equally spaced data points that span from near the edge of the viscous sublayer to the channel centreline. As a result of the high spatial resolution, even very small levels of uncertainty in the data adversely affect the capacity to produce smooth velocity derivative profiles. It is demonstrated that the present 1c-MTV measurements can be differentiated twice, with the resulting profile remaining smooth and accurate. The experimental mean velocity profiles and their wall-normal derivatives up to second order are shown to convincingly agree with existing DNS data, including the apparent variations with Reynolds number.

In this paper, a new type molecular tagging velocimetry based on NH fluorescence was developed and validated for the velocity measurements of a high-enthalpy rarefied gas wind tunnel where the maximum flow velocity exceeds 7 km/s at 0.2 Pa. The feasibility of this technique using the short-lived NH fluorescence was demonstrated in the hypersonic rarefied gas flow with yielding velocity profiles at multiple downstream locations from the nozzle exit. The total uncertainty of the measured flow velocities was estimated to be less than 6% when the flow velocity above 2000 m/s. For the new tagging technique, only a single laser and a single time-gated camera are required for velocity measurement, due to the existence of NH radicals in the arc-discharged N2 mixed with small an amount of H2. Therefore, the NH-MTV not only shows great promise for tagging in high-enthalpy rarefied gas of nitrogen or air flows without seeding but also possesses high practicability and facility for velocity measurement.

Planar laser-induced fluorescence of naturally occurring nitric oxide has been used to provide insight into baseline flow conditions of the Hypersonic Materials Environmental Test System 400 kW arc-heated wind tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center via radial and axial velocity measurements and instantaneous flow-visualization images. This represents both the first flow-tagging velocity measurements and the first application of nitric-oxide planar laser-induced fluorescence flow visualization in an arcjet facility. Results are presented at selected facility run conditions, including some in a simulated Earth atmosphere (75% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 5% argon) and others in a simulated Martian atmosphere (71% carbon dioxide, 24% nitrogen, 5% argon) for specific bulk enthalpies ranging from 6.5 to 18.4 MJ/kg. Flow-visualization images reveal the presence of large-scale unsteady flow structures and indicate nitric-oxide fluorescence signal over more than 70% of the core flow for specific bulk enthalpies below a...

A variation on molecular tagging velocimetry (MTV) [1] designated iodine tagging velocimetry (ITV) is demonstrated. Molecular iodine is tagged by two-photon absorption using an Argon Fluoride (ArF) excimer laser. A single camera measures fluid displacement using atomic iodine emission at 206 nm. Two examples ofMTVfor cold-flowmeasurements areN2OMTV [2] and Femtosecond Laser Electronic Excitation Tagging [3]. These, like most MTV methods, are designed for atmospheric pressure applications. Neither can be implemented at the low pressures (0.1- 1 Torr) in typical hypersonic wakes. Of all the single-laser/singlecamera MTV approaches, only Nitric-Oxide Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence-based MTV [4] has been successfully demonstrated in a Mach 10 wake. Oxygen quenching limits transit times to 500 ns and accuracy to typically 30%. The present note describes the photophysics of the ITV method. Off-body velocimetry along a line is demonstrated in the aerothermodynamically important and experimentally challenging region of a hypersonic low-pressure near-wake in a Mach 10 air wind tunnel. Transit times up to 10 μs are demonstrated with conservative errors of 10%.