Use of simultaneous IR temperature measurements and DPIV to investigate thermal plumes in a thick layer cooled from above

Abstract

 Simultaneous measurements of surface temperature and the underlying velocity field are presented for a thick horizontal layer evaporatively cooled from above. Previous studies have focused on either the temperature field at the cooled surface or, in a small number of cases, on point velocity measurements in the flow. The current investigation is, to the knowledge of the authors, the first to simultaneously and non-intrusively document both the surface temperature and underlying velocity field in this type of flow. An infrared (IR) sensing array was used to capture the instantaneous free surface temperature field while two-dimensional velocity measurements in planes either perpendicular or parallel to the free surface were acquired using digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV). Data from two cases are discussed.