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Air-filled soap bubbles for volumetric velocity measurements

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Abstract

The use of air-filled soap bubbles for volumetric velocimetry in air flows is demonstrated experimentally. The tracers are produced by a novel system that seeds high number density soap bubble streams for particle image velocimetry applications. Particle number density considerations, spatial resolution and response time scales are discussed in light of current seeding techniques for volumetric measurements. The micro-soap bubbles are employed to measure the 3D velocity field in intermediate-sized flow volumes of 75–500 \(\text {cm}^3\), which are difficult to measure with existing tracers such as liquid droplets or relatively large helium-filled soap bubbles, while resolving small-scale flow variations. The mean volumetric concentration of approximately 50 tracers per \(\text {cm}^3\) provides a potential for high-resolution measurements. Finally, the methodology is demonstrated for velocity measurements in the wake of a sphere immersed in a turbulent boundary layer. Both the wake structures and the boundary layer statistics are characterized successfully with a reasonable spatial resolution.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by TSI Incorporated. This work was partially supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF CBET-1510154). The authors gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments from the three referees.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Diogo C. Barros, Yanchong Duan & Ellen K. Longmire

  2. TSI, Incorporated, 500 Cardigan Rd., Shoreview, MN, USA

    Daniel R. Troolin

  3. Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, IUSTI, Marseille, France

    Diogo C. Barros

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  1. Diogo C. Barros
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  2. Yanchong Duan
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  3. Daniel R. Troolin
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  4. Ellen K. Longmire
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Correspondence to Diogo C. Barros.

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Barros, D.C., Duan, Y., Troolin, D.R. et al. Air-filled soap bubbles for volumetric velocity measurements. Exp Fluids 62, 36 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-021-03134-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00348-021-03134-6

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