Single Phase Turbulent Flow Regime Characterization Using Image Processing Techniques

Optical techniques are useful for non- contacting flow measurements such as high pressure and high temperature situations. Certain optical flow measurement technique works well only in turbulent flow regime. Hence, in order to improve the optical flow measurement technique, there is a need to characterize the single phase turbulent flow regime using image processing technique. This will allow the optical flow measurement technique to be applied at the turbulent flow regime, increasing its accuracy. Crone et. al. stated in his Optical Particle Velocimetry (OPV) work that OPV works best in turbulent flow regime. It cannot be applied to transitional flow regime. Image processing techniques was applied on 50 frames of Crone et. al.’s single phase flow images to characterize the single phase turbulent flow regime. Experimental results developed by Crone et. al. was used as the theoretical data to validate the accuracy of the techniques.