Near-wall velocity measurements by Particle-Shadow-Tracking

Pierre Lancien (1) , Eric Lajeunesse (1) , François Métivier (1)

1 IPGP - Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris

We report a new method to measure the velocity of a fluid in the vicinity of a wall. The method, that we call Particle-Shadow Tracking (PST), simply consists in seeding the fluid with a small number of fine tracer particles of density close to that of the fluid. The position of each particle and of its shadow on the wall are then tracked simultaneously, allowing one to accurately determine the distance separating tracers from the wall and therefore to extract the velocity field. We present an application of the method to the determination of the velocity profile inside a laminar density current flowing along an inclined plane.

Mots clés: PIV; velocity profile; gravity currents; boundary layer

Domaines: Dynamique des Fluides [physics.flu-dyn]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Pierre Lancien, Eric Lajeunesse, François Métivier. Near-wall velocity measurements by Particle-Shadow-Tracking. 2007. ⟨hal-00123732⟩