Preliminary Study About the Applicability of Particle Image Velocimetry to Aerodynamical Industrial Facilities of Large Dimensions

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is increasingly used to investigate unsteady velocity fields istantaneously. For the first time the PIV technique allows the recording of a complete velocity field in a plane of the flow within microseconds. This does not only give information about the unsteady flow fields otherwise not obtainable but also help to save operational time in the wind tunnel with consequent reduction of the costs. All these characteristics have stimulated a great interest about the applicability of PIV to large wind tunnels. At DLR, and later in part replicated at CIRA, a set up for PIV has been developed which can be operated under the rough environmental condition (noise, vibration) of a large wind tunnel