Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17

DOI 10.1007/s00348-014-1892-4

RESEARCH ARTICLE

High‑speed particle image velocimetry for the efficient

measurement of turbulence statistics
Christian E. Willert

Received: 22 October 2013 / Revised: 19 December 2014 / Accepted: 19 December 2014 / Published online: 13 January 2015
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Abstract A high-frame-rate camera and a continu- Abbreviations

ous-wave laser are used to capture long particle image cf Friction coefficient
sequences exceeding 100,000 consecutive frames at fram- f Focal length
ing frequencies up to 20 kHz. The electronic shutter of f# f-Number (lens aperture)
the high-speed CMOS camera is reduced to 10 µs to pre- IW Interrogation window size
vent excessive particle image streaking. The combination M Magnification
of large image number and high frame rate is possible N Number of samples
by limiting the field of view to a narrow strip, primar- Rij Space-time correlation function of scalar
ily to capture temporally resolved profiles of velocity quantities i, j
and derived quantities, such as vorticity as well as higher Reδ Reynolds number based on U99 and δ99
order statistics. Multi-frame PIV processing algorithms Reδ ∗ Reynolds number based on U99 and δ ∗
are employed to improve the dynamic range of recovered Reθ Reynolds number based on U99 and θ
PIV data. The recovered data are temporally well resolved Reτ Reynolds number based on uτ and δ99
and provide sufficient samples for statistical convergence S Shape factor, δ ∗ /θ
of the fluctuating velocity components. The measure- t Time
ment technique is demonstrated on a spatially developing u, v, w Streamwise, wall-normal and spanwise velocity
turbulent boundary layer inside a small wind tunnel with components
Reδ = 4,800, Reτ = 240 and Reθ = 515. The chosen mag- u′ , v′ , w′ Fluctuating velocity components
nification permits a reliable estimation of the mean velocity uτ Skin friction velocity
profile down to a few wall units and yields statistical infor- Ucl Center line velocity
mation such as the Reynolds stress components and prob- U99  0.99 Ucl
ability density functions. By means of single-line correla- x, y, z Streamwise, wall-normal and spanwise
tion, it is further possible to extract the near-wall velocity coordinates
profile in the viscous sublayer, both time-averaged as well x + , y+ , z+ Distances in wall units based on uτ
as instantaneous, which permits the estimation the wall δ99 Boundary layer thickness at 99% Ucl
shear rate γ̇ and along with it the shear stress τw and fric- δ ∗ Boundary layer displacement thickness
tion velocity uτ. These data are then used for the calcula- t Time delay between two illumination pulses
tion of space-time correlation maps of wall shear stress and x, y Streamwise and wall-normal displacement in pixels
velocity.  Wavelength of light
ν Kinematic viscosity
θ Boundary layer momentum thickness
γ̇ Wall shear rate ≡ ∂u/∂yy=0
C. E. Willert (*)
τw Wall shear stress
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute for Propulsion
Technology, 51170 Cologne, Germany ωx , ωy , ωz Streamwise, wall-normal and spanwise vorticity
e-mail: chris.willert@dlr.de components

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17 Page 2 of 17
1 Introduction
The steady improvement of numerical methods for flow
simulation relies on experimental data for their validation.
In this regard, the PIV method (Adrian and Westerweel
2010; Adrian 1991; Raffel et al. 2007) has gained increased
popularity in the past two decades and has matured to the
point of providing access to the complete velocity gradient
tensor (Elsinga et al. 2006; Scarano 2013).
Inherently, the PIV technique has two important limita-
tions: on one hand, PIV relies on finite-sized imaging
arrays with edge lengths generally in the range of 1,000–
5,000 elements which along with the finite sampling win-
dow size (IW) limits the achievable dynamic spatial range
(DSR) to about 50. . .300 (for IW = 16 pixels). On the other
hand, the sampling window size defines the maximum
resolvable displacement to generally less than half the sam-
ple size1 and is bounded on the lower end by statistical
noise. In practice, this random error is of the order of 0.05–
0.1 pixel such that the achievable dynamic velocity range
(DVR) typically is of the order of 100:1 (Adrian 1997,
2005).
Another shortcoming arises due to the rather low sam-
pling frequency of PIV with respect to the temporal time
scales of the studied flow. Significant technological pro-
gress has been made in recent years so that PIV image data
can be captured at up to 10,000 frames per second (fps) at a
resolution of one megapixel. While this is impressive in its
own right, the time scales in many technical flows require
camera frame rates that are at least one order of magnitude
higher, along with an equivalent increase in laser pulsing
frequencies.
In the context of providing data for the validation
of numerical methods, the PIV technique is frequently
removed of one of its most powerful capabilities, namely
in providing spatially resolved instantaneous maps of the
investigated flow. It is common practice to first record a
rather significant number of snapshots and then ensemble
average the recovered velocity data to provide maps of
the first and second moments of the flow field, that is, the
mean and standard deviations of the velocity components
along with the Reynolds stresses. Convergence of the lat-
ter requires a large number of samples (N > 1,000) which
is not always feasible, in particular, when low-frame-rate
PIV systems are utilized on facilities with high operational
costs or short running times. Storage requirements for large
data sets of high-resolution image data impose a further
constraint.
1
Displacements larger than 21IW are recoverable with advanced PIV
processing methods but impose other restrictions.
13
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17
The present article has exploratory character and intends
to bring to attention a number of previously less explored
capabilities offered by high-speed imaging for turbulence
research. The hardware requirements are minimal in that
all high-speed measurements presented in the following
involve only a single high-speed camera with sufficiently
large memory and a strong continuous laser light source.
Image data are acquired for a narrow strip. The correspond-
ing reduction in DSR is compensated through the availabil-
ity of continuous time traces of velocity data from which
statistical quantities and spectra can be recovered. As the
image data is temporally over-sampled, multi-strided PIV
processing can be utilized improving the DVR (Hain and
Kähler 2007; Sciacchitano et al. 2012).
The utilization of time-resolved PIV in turbulence
research is by no means new as testified in the literature,
especially with the wider availability of high-speed lasers
and high-speed cameras from the mid-2000s onwards
(Dennis and Nickels 2011; LeHew et al. 2013). Even
time-resolved tomographic PIV measurements have been
applied, for instance, to track and characterize vortex struc-
tures within the turbulent boundary layer (Elsinga and
Marusic 2010; Gao et al. 2013; Schröder et al. 2008, 2011).
The approach presented in this work aims at bridging the
gap between precise single-point measurements offered, for
instance, by HWA and LDA on the one end and the often
coarser but global/topological views offered through planar
PIV or tomographic PIV on the other end. By restricting
the measurement area to a narrow strip, both the acquisition
frequency and sample count can be significantly increased,
resulting in time-resolved velocity profile measurements.
The first part of the following article describes a small
wind tunnel facility used for the demonstration of the pro-
posed measurement technique. Conventional (low speed)
PIV measurements of the developing boundary layer inside
the test section are performed a priori to serve as reference.
The second part is devoted to the high-speed PIV measure-
ment technique and provides several examples of making
use of the time-resolved image data for estimating flow
statistics, spectra, probability density functions and cor-
relations. Furthermore, a method is presented for estimat-
ing both the mean and unsteady wall shear stress from the
acquired image data. The latter is then used for the calcula-
tion of space-time correlation maps.
While some of the experimental data presented in the
following sections are compared to DNS data of a turbu-
lent boundary layer (TBL), the reader should be aware of
the fact that the flow inside the small wind tunnel is not
fully compatible with the classical flat plate boundary layer
flow to which it is compared. The growing boundary layer
inside the confined geometry of the square duct results in
an increasing centerline velocity and introduces a favorable
pressure gradient. While agreement between measurement
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17 Page 3 of 17 17

Fig. 1  Photograph of wind tun-

nel facility

Fig. 2  Schematic diagram

of wind tunnel facility with
approximate indication of
high-speed PIV measurement
location

and DNS is quite prevalent throughout the article, its prin- Table 1  Flow channel parameters
cipal aim is to point out the capabilities and shortcomings Quantity Symbol Value Unit
of the described PIV measurement approach.
Test section area d 76 × 76 mm2
Test section length L 830 mm
2 Flow facility Nozzle contraction ratio – 10:1 –
Turbulence grid, solidity S 37.7 % –
Turbulence measurements are performed in the near-wall Turbulence grid, rod spacing rod 7.6 mm
region of a developing turbulent boundary layer inside a Turbulence grid, rod width drod 1.6 mm
square duct. The test facility, shown in Fig. 1, is a small-
scale wind tunnel designed for the investigation of mix-
ing processes within confined geometries and is used in a
“clean” configuration for the present investigations, that the present study. Details of the wind tunnel are summa-
is, without mixing port or heated wall. The wind tunnel is rized in Table 1.
operated in suction mode and has a 830 mm long test sec-
tion with a square cross section of side length d = 76 mm. 2.1 Reference PIV measurements
Quartz windows with 45◦ edge bevels provide optical
access to the entire cross section. As outlined in Fig. 2, Conventional two-component, dual-frame PIV measure-
flow conditioning is provided by a settling chamber con- ments were performed a priori to serve as a basis for com-
taining screens and straightening tubes. Reproducible tur- parison with the high-speed PIV profile measurement data
bulent flow conditions within the test section are provided described later. All PIV measurements described here,
by a turbulence grid made of perforated steel that is placed including the high-speed imaging, rely on aerosol par-
immediately upstream of the test section at the exit of the ticles consisting of 1 µm paraffin droplets created by a
contraction nozzle. Aside from introducing turbulence to Laskin atomizer. An impactor in the seeding device sepa-
the bulk flow, the grid also trips the turbulent boundary lay- rates the large size fraction prior to introducing the seeded
ers on the walls of the test section which are the subject of air to a settling chamber upstream of the facility’s flow

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17 Page 4 of 17 Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17

straighteners and screens (see Fig. 2). The seeded chan- of 7,000 fps at a resolution of 1,024 × 1,024 pixel and a
nel flow is illuminated by a dual cavity, frequency doubled PCO dimax HS4 with a maximum frame rate of 2,000 fps
Nd:YAG laser with a rated pulse energy of 50 mJ (Brilliant at 2,016 × 2,016 pixel. The cameras have sensor resolu-
Twins, Quantel/BigSky Laser). The laser light is spread into tions of 20 µm/pixel and 11 µm/pixel, respectively. For
a light sheet of about 150 mm width and has a thickness of the present application, the cameras are operated with a
about 1 mm in the area of interest. The scattered light is reduced field of view (FOV) of 1,024 × 256 which allows
imaged by a macro lens (Zeiss Macro-Planar, 100/f# 2.0) at the frame rate to be increased up to 20,000 fps. A macro
an aperture of f# 2.8 and magnification of m = 26.9 pixel/ lens (Zeiss Macro-Planar 100 mm/f# 2.0) images the illu-
mm (M = 5.72:1) onto a scientific CMOS camera array minated particles onto the sensor at a magnification of
with a sensor resolution of 2,560 × 2,160 pixels (ILA.PIV. M ≈ 1.6:1. Additionally, a f = 200 mm macro lens (Nikon
sCMOS, ILA GmbH). With the laser pulse separation set at Micro-Nikkor 200 mm/f4.0) is used to further increase the
t = 300 µs, particle displacements of x ≈ 32 pixels are magnification to M ≈ 1:1.
reached for the tunnel centerline velocity of Ucl = 4 m/s. Three acquired image sequences from each of the cam-
The rather long pulse separation is chosen to improve the eras are the subject of this study. Their characteristics are
measurement of the relatively low turbulence levels in tun- summarized in Table 2. All sequences were acquired at a
nel’s bulk flow. fixed laser power of 5W which translates to an integrated
The reference PIV data are processed using conventional energy of 100 µJ for a 20 µs exposure time of the camera.
PIV image analysis based on PIVview-v3.5 software (PIV- At this energy level, the particles are imaged by the Pho-
TEC GmbH), featuring a coarse-to-fine processing scheme tron camera at a moderate 20–100 counts on a uniform
starting with a sample size of 192 × 192 and a final size background intensity of about 26–27 counts. The PCO
of 24 × 16 (0.906 × 0.604 mm2). The final grid spacing is camera has an increased sensitivity, providing peak par-
6 × 6 (0.227 × 0.227 mm2). Validation relies on established ticle intensities of several 1,000 counts on a background
methods such as the normalized median filter (Westerweel of about 2,000 counts. Figure 3 shows two representative
and Scarano 2005). The valid vector rate exceeds 99 % in images of the acquired sequences using inverted intensity
the bulk flow decreasing to about 90 % in the near-wall, (black indicates high brightness). In flow direction, the
high-shear regions. imaged particles are streaked proportional to their velocity
and camera exposure time. Normal to the flow direction the
particle images generally cover less than two pixels which
3 Velocity profile measurements using high‑speed PIV can be attributed to the large pixel size of the high-speed
CMOS sensors. Owing to the constant intensity of the CW
3.1 Experimental hardware laser light source, the frame-to-frame intensity variation of
the particle images is minimal (e.g., within a few percent)
The high-speed particle image sequences are made pos- and well suited for PIV processing.
sible through the use of a high-power continuous-wave
(CW) laser light source. To reduce streaking of the particle
images on the camera sensor, the camera itself is electroni-
cally shuttered during the acquisition of each image frame.
Table 2  Acquired high-speed PIV image sequences and reference
The laser (Verdi 5, Coherent) produces up to 6W single- PIV measurement
frequency green laser light at a wave length of 532 nm. As
Sequence number Seq. 1a Seq. 1b Seq. 2 Ref.
the laser fluence is constant in time, short exposure times
Camera Photron Photron Dimax-HS4 sCMOS
and high framing rates significantly reduce the amount of
light scattered by the particles for any given frame and Frame rate, f (Hz) 10,000 20,000 20,000 15
therefore typically is not suitable for PIV measurements Duration, T (s) 4.367 2.184 9.331 68.3
in air flows. However, by limiting the width of the light Samples, N 43,674 43,674 186,612 1,024
sheet to a few millimeters (4–8 mm) and less than 0.5 mm TUcl /δ 992 490 2,100 16,550
thickness, the fluence can be increased to provide suffi- Sample interval, uτ2 /(f ν) 0.275 0.134 0.134 183
cient light scattering from micrometer-sized particles to Exposure, texp (μs) 20 25 20 <0.01
adequately expose to camera sensor. Beam profiler meas- Field of view, W (mm) 8.18 5.03 7.18 96.7
urements determined the light sheet width and thickness H (mm) 32.73 20.13 28.74 81.6
(1/e2) to be 7.0 mm and 0.2 mm, respectively. At a laser Magnification, M (pixel/mm) 31.286 50.875 35.632 26.482
power of 5W, the fluence is about 3.3 W/mm2.
Magnification, M (y+/pixel) 0.430 0.265 0.373 0.502
Measurements were performed using two high-speed
Plotting symbol △ ▽  ◦
camera models: a Photron SA5 with a maximum frame rate

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Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17 Page 5 of 17 17

Fig. 3  Representative images

from Seq. 1a (left) and Seq.
1b (right). Field of view is
32.73 × 8.18 mm2 (left) and
20.13 × 5.03 mm2 (right); glass
tunnel wall is horizontal line
near the bottom edge of the
image, mean flow is left to right

13
17 Page 6 of 17
3.2 PIV processing
Except for the shear rate estimation presented in Sect. 3.7,
the image data are processed using conventional dual-
frame PIV image analysis based on PIVview-v3.5 soft-
ware (PIVTEC GmbH). The processing scheme outlined
in Fig. 4 makes use of the fact that the data are tempo-
rally over-sampled to allow an image stride greater than
the individual frame separation. This results in a reduced
uncertainty in the displacement estimate due to the pro-
portionally increased displacement magnitude, but ignores
higher order effects such as particle path curvature or accel-
eration. For the present application, the image strides varies
between n = 1 and n = 2, while the sampling window size
is varied between 32 × 12 and 64 × 6 pixels. This allows
improving the spatial resolution in the vicinity of the wall
while maintaining sufficient particle image counts per sam-
ple. The recovered PIV data are then filtered in time with a
moving average of Gaussian weight distribution to reduce
high-frequency (spurious) noise. In the present application,
the filter base length is ±1 to ±3 time steps.
Histograms compiled from the complete data sets of the
processed sequences Seq. 1b and Seq. 2 are presented in
Fig. 5. Both the horizontal (x) and the vertical displace-
ment component (y) are provided in unscaled (pixel)
units to highlight the possible presence of pixel locking
in the data. Pixel locking refers to the frequently observed
tendency of PIV data toward integral pixel displacement
values and is typically rooted in under-sampled image
data. Of the four histograms in Fig. 5, only the vertical
displacement component for Seq. 1b obtained with the
Photron camera (Fig. 5, top left) exhibits significant pixel
locking. This effect is not observed for the PCO camera
which can be explained by its roughly halved pixel size of
11 µm compared with 20 µm for the Photron camera. The
horizontal displacement component x of neither camera
exhibits any sign of pixel locking which is a consequence
of preferentially horizontal image streaking on the sen-
sor due to the finite exposure of continuously illuminated
particles. This results in particle images wider than the
minimum 2.0 pixel size required for PIV data being free of
pixel locking (Adrian and Westerweel 2010; Raffel et al.
2007). The effect of pixel locking on the turbulence statis-
tics, although an interesting subject in itself, is not investi-
gated within the scope of the present study. Surprising (or
maybe not) is the fact that none of the figures involving the
vertical velocity component v presented in the following
seems to exhibit artifacts that could be attributed to pixel
locking.
The majority of the following figures are scaled to
wall units (inner scaling) which is indicated by the super-
script ‘+’ and represents the viscous scaling of length
y+ = yuτ /ν, velocity u+ = u/uτ and time t + = tuτ2 /ν. The
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Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17
Fig. 4  PIV processing scheme for the analysis of temporally over-
sampled PIV recordings for an image stride of 2
required friction velocity uτ is determined using the meth-
odology described in Sect. 3.7.
In Fig. 6 the unsteady behavior of the boundary layer
flow is shown in the form of space-time diagrams of the
streamwise and wall-normal velocity components u+ , v+
as well as the spanwise vorticity profile ωz+. In these plots
each column of pixels represents a single column of PIV
data from a given data set in the sequence, while the hori-
zontal time axis covers 1,024 time steps (0.0512 s). Thus,
a given row represents a time trace at a fixed wall distance.
These time traces will be used later for the calculation of
spectra and cross-correlation functions.
3.3 Mean velocity profile and higher order statistics
An overview of several characteristic quantities for the tur-
bulent boundary layer as calculated from the high-speed
PIV image sequences are provided in Table 3. Many of
these values have been obtained through integration of the
mean velocity profile which will be described in the fol-
lowing. The mean streamwise velocity profile is shown in
Fig. 7 for all three sequences, all of which were processed
with a sample size of 64 × 6 pixels, corresponding to ver-
tical sizes of 2.6y+ (Seq. 1a), 1.6y+ (Seq. 1b) and 2.2y+
(Seq. 2). Symbols are only provided for the near-wall region
(<10y+) to improve the visibility of differences between the
respective profiles. The reference PIV data with a sample
height of 8.0y+ is indicated as orange-filled circles up into
the buffer layer and orange line above. In addition the result
of direct numerical simulation (DNS) of an evolving turbu-
lent boundary layer with zero pressure gradient (ZPGTBL)
at Reτ = 255, Reθ = 590 (Schlatter et al. 2009) is plotted in
solid red. The solid blue line indicates the linear dependence
inside the viscous sublayer where u+ = y+. The boundary
layer thickness δ99 % is reached at ≈ 240y+ which corre-
sponds to 17.8 mm.
Overall the measured velocity profiles do not exhibit
a clear logarithmic portion which is to be expected at
this rather low Reynolds number (Reτ = 240). The data
obtained from the sequences were compared favorably with
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17 Page 7 of 17 17

Fig. 5  Histograms for complete

data sets of horizontal (left) and
vertical displacement compo-
nent (right) for Seq. 1b (top)

Rel. Frequency
Rel. Frequency
and Seq. 2 (bottom); bin width
0.05 pixel

0 5 10 15 20 -2 -1 0 1 2
dx [pixel] dy [pixel]

Rel. Frequency
Rel. Frequency

0 5 10 15 -2 -1 0 1 2
dx [pixel] dy [pixel]

Fig. 6  Temporal evolution

of the normalized streamwise
component u+ (top), the wall-
normal component v+ (middle)
and spanwise vorticity ωz+ (bot-
tom) for a portion of Seq. 1b

the ZPGTBL DNS data at Reτ = 255. A small vertical off-
set of 0.5U + toward higher values at 20 < y+ < 150 with a
less pronounced excursion in the outer layer (>150y+) may
be related to the fact that the evolving turbulent boundary
layer inside the duct is bounded from both sides and the
top and has a small (favorable) streamwise pressure gradi-
ent (∂p/∂x < 0).
The wall-normal profiles of the normalized fluctuat-
ing velocity components �ui′ uj′ �+ are provided in Fig. 8
for all three sequences alongside with the reference PIV
measurements (orange-filled circles) and ZPGTBL DNS
data (red line). The peak turbulence production is located
near 13.5y+ and is in good agreement with the DNS data.
The reference PIV data with its roughly four times larger
vertical sample size 8y+ are not able to reliably recover
this peak and deviates strongly for smaller wall distances.
Deviations between the DNS and measured profiles for
the streamwise and wall-normal fluctuations are more
pronounced in the region above 50y+ which again is most
likely attributed to the finite streamwise pressure gradient
in the duct.
Figure 9 shows profiles of the skewness S and flatness
or kurtosis K of the streamwise velocity. Only the data for
the longest sequence Seq. 2, processed with a larger sam-
ple window of 64 × 12 pixels, are presented. Data for the
shorter sequences Seq. 1a and Seq. 1b is not shown because

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17 Page 8 of 17 Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17

Table 3  Characteristic Sequence number Seq. 1a Seq. 1b Seq. 2 Ref.

quantities calculated from high-
speed PIV data Camera Photron Photron Dimax-HS4 sCMOS

2,770 2,700 2,685 –


−1
Wall shear rate, ∂u
∂y y=0 (s )


Friction velocity, uτ (m/s) 0.2045 0.2019 0.2008 –

Wall unit, ν/uτ (μ/s) 74.3 75.3 75.7 –
Max. mean velocity, Umax (m/s) 4.106 4.049 4.026 4.034
Max. mean displacement, xmax (pixel) 12.84 10.30 7.17 32.05
BL thickness, δ (mm) 31.21 31.26 27.60 29.36
δ99 % (mm) 18.08 18.02 17.83 17.12
Displacement thickness, δ∗ (mm) 2.953 2.979 2.917 2.887
Momentum thickness, θ (mm) 1.937 1.933 1.894 1.922
Shape factor, S (–) 1.525 1.542 1.540 1.502
Reynolds number, Reδ99 (–) 4,915 4,833 4,755 4,575
Reθ (–) 527 518 505 513
Reτ (–) 245 241 239 –
Friction coeff., cf (–) 0.00496 0.00506 0.00503 0.00501

20 8
〈 u’u’ 〉+

6
15
+
〈 u’i u’j 〉

4
U+

10

2
〈 v’v’ 〉+
5
0
〈 u’v’ 〉+

0 100 101 102

100 101 102 +
+
y
y

Fig. 7  Mean streamwise velocity profiles U + of turbulent boundary 8

〈 u’u’ 〉+
layer inside a square duct; DNS data for Reτ = 255 from Schlatter
et al. (2009) (red line). Symbols only shown for y+ < 10 for clarity:
6
triangle Seq. 1a, inverter triangle Seq. 1b, square Seq. 2, circle con-
ventional 2-C PIV
〈 u’i u’j 〉+

of lack of convergence. In comparison, the reference PIV 2

data cover a longer sampling period in time and therefore 〈 v’v’ 〉+
are able to follow the same trends, even though not fully 0
converged. Toward the upper edge of the boundary layer the 〈 u’v’ 〉+
skewness tends toward zero and kurtosis toward 3, which 0 100 200 300
is indicative of the expected normal Gaussian distribution +
y
of the weakly turbulent outer bulk flow. A good match to
the ZPGTBL DNS data at Reτ = 252 (Schlatter and Örlü
Fig. 8  Averaged, normalized velocity fluctuations of the turbulent
2010) can be observed even for values down into the vis-
channel boundary layer, top profiles: < u′ u′ >; middle< v′ v′ >; bot-
cous sublayer. The peaks in Su and Ku for the measured tom < u′ v′ >; red lines DNS data for Reτ = 255 from Schlatter and
data in the outer region at ≈ 200y+ are not as pronounced Örlü (2010)

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Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17 Page 9 of 17 17

10
6
4 8
5
6

4
2 4

Ku-3
Su

Ξ
2 3

0 0
2

-2
1
-2 -4

100 101 102 0

+
100 101 102
y y +

Fig. 9  Skew (solid line) and kurtosis (dashed line) of streamwise +

velocity component u for Seq. 2 processed with a sampling window Fig. 10  Profiles of the log-law indicator functions Ξ = y+ ∂U ∂y+ ;
of 64 × 12 pixels (24.0x + × 4.5y+). Conventional PIV results circle inverter triangle Seq. 1b, circle conventional 2-C PIV, straight line
obtained with sample size of 24 × 16 pixels (12.0x + × 8y+), red lines DNS data for Reτ = 255 from Schlatter and Örlü (2010)
DNS data for Reτ = 255 from Schlatter and Örlü (2010)

as in the DNS, for which there is no immediate explana- 0.5

tion. Other TBL experiments at higher Reynolds numbers

report similar peak values of Su ≈ −2 and Ku ≈ 10 (Vin- 0.4
centi et al. 2013). The different positions of the outer peaks
between the current experiment and the DNS are related, in 0.3
+
u’ /U

part, to the difference in Reynolds numbers.

+

0.2
3.4 Diagnostic plots and log‑law indicator function
0.1
To better assess the quality of the measurements with
regard to their suitability to providing reliable turbulence
statistics, three different methods of plotting the experi- 0
100 101
2
10
mental data are reported in the literature and shall be pre- y
+

sented in the following.

Plots of the so called log-law indicator function
+ Fig. 11  Ratio of rms streamwise velocity to local mean velocity
Ξ = y+ ∂U ∂y+ for sequence Seq. 1b, the reference PIV meas-
urements and the DNS are shown in Fig. 10. The local min-
imum at y+ ≈ 50 provides an estimate for the inverse of
the von Kármán constant 1/κ appearing in the logarithmic
wall function:
1
U+ = ln y+ + B
κ Figure 11 shows the ratio of u′2 to the streamwise
For fully developed turbulent boundary layers this constant
reaches κ = 0.41 with B ≈ 5. The ZPGTBL DNS data of
Schlatter et al. (2009), Schlatter and Örlü (2010) predict a
value of κ = 0.38 at 48y+ which agrees well to the experi-
mental data shown in Fig. 10. Using the value of κ = 0.38
the offset constant B is estimated to be B ≈ 4.5 and
B ≈ 4.66 for the experimental data and DNS data, respec-
tively. Compared with the reference PIV measurements, the
data obtained from the sequence show less scatter which
√
( u′2 /u) for sampling window heights of 1.6y+ (Seq. 1b, inverter tri-
angle) and 4.5y+ (Seq. 2, square), 8.0y+ (Ref., circle), red line DNS
data for Reτ = 255 from Schlatter and Örlü (2010)
are a consequence of the considerably larger number of
(1) samples provided by the sequences. 
mean velocity u alongside the ZPGTBL DNS data set for
Reτ = 255. As pointed out by de Graaff and Eaton (2000)
this quantity provides an estimate of the quality of the near-
wall measurements as both u′2 and u approach zero near
the wall and hence are susceptible to measurement errors.
The DNS data (as well as other experiments) predict a
value of u′2 /u ≈ 0.4 near the wall for distances y+ < 4.
For the present measurement data, the smallest interroga-
tion window (IW = 64 × 6 pixels) achieved with Seq. 1b

13
17 Page 10 of 17
0.1
0.2 0.05
0 0.3
0 0.1
u’/Ucl
0.1
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
u/Ucl
√
Fig. 12  Normalized rms streamwise velocity u′2 /Ucl with respect
to u/Ucl for sampling window heights of 2.58y+ (Seq. 1a, triangle),
1.6y+ (Seq. 1b, inverter triangle), 4.5y+ (Seq. 2, square), 8.0y+ (Ref.,
circle), red line DNS data for Reτ = 255 from Schlatter and Örlü
(2010)
retrieves this value remarkably well down to ≈ 1. As
expected for larger interrogation windows, the deviation
commences at correspondingly larger wall distances, for
Seq. 2a in Fig. 11 at y+ < 4. In the outer region, the meas-
ured value asymptotes to a finite level (≈ 0.02) which is
attributed to the turbulence in the bulk flow induced by the
grid located upstream.
The third approach to assess the data quality was sug-
gested by Alfredsson and Örlü (2010). The so called
diagnostic plot shows the root-mean-squared streamwise
velocity as a function of the streamwise mean velocity
both normalized by the outer mean flow U∞ which is
plotted in Fig. 12 for the present data sets with U∞ = Ucl.
This representation collapses the data into the range
0 < u/Ucl < 1 with data taken at the same Reynolds
number falling on top of each other, if measured prop-
erly (Alfredsson and Örlü 2010). In the present case,
the sequence data match closely with some deviations
and outliers near the wall where both the mean veloc-
ity u and the fluctuations u′ decrease. For the refer-
ence PIV data, this deviation is much more severe for
values u/Ucl < 0.4 which correspond to a wall distance
of about 15y+. (Alfredsson and Örlü 2010) also point
out that the slope of the linear portion near the wall is
related to the rms level of wall shear stress which was
determined experimentally to be τ ′ /τw = 0.39 Alfreds-
son et al. (1988) and 0.403 to 0.429 for DNS (Schlatter
et al. 2009; Schlatter and Örlü 2010). The dashed blue
line in Fig. 12 has a slope of 0.4 with which the current
experimental data line up, indicating that the near-wall
13
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17
0.4
0.2
+
ωz
0.2
0.1
1
0 0
101
2
10 10
+
y
Fig. 13  Root mean square of spanwise vorticity ωz normalized
by mean wall shear rate γ̇ . Red line DNS data for Reτ = 255 from
Schlatter and Örlü (2010), orange symbols circle and line reference
PIV data
measurements are trustworthy (e.g., free of wall interfer-
y+ ence effects).
3.5 Spanwise vorticity distribution
The availability of spatially resolved velocity data allows
the estimation of differential quantities such as vorticity
from each PIV recording. This data can then be analyzed
statistically analogous to the velocity data. As an exam-
ple, the root-mean-square distribution of the wall-parallel
vorticity component ωz is presented in Fig. 13. Vorticity
is computed from the velocity field data using a circula-
tion approach applied on the eight nodes surrounding a
given data point [see e.g., (Raffel et al. 2007), page 194].
These data are then normalized by the mean wall shear
rate γ̇ whose estimation is presented in Sect. 3.7. The vor-
ticity data provided in Fig. 13 were determined for the
three high-speed sequences using common sample sizes of
32 × 12 pixels. In the outer region of the turbulent bound-
ary layer, the wall-parallel vorticity has a nearly constant
value of ωz+ ≈ 0.02 − 0.03, related to the free stream tur-
bulence in the wake of the grid, and increases to a maxi-
mum of ωz+ ≈ 0.4 in the immediate vicinity of the wall
which agrees with ZPGTBL DNS data provided by Schlat-
ter and Örlü (2009, 2010). The reference PIV data under-
estimate the rms vorticity which can be attributed to both
spatial and temporal filtering of the velocity estimates due
to finite window size and sampling interval t. The refer-
ence data have a vertical sampling window height of 8.0y+
and a sampling interval of 0.80 t + (300 µs) compared
with 3.2 − 5.2y+ and 0.27 t + (100 µs) for the high-speed
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17 Page 11 of 17 17

Fig. 14  Power spectra of u 10

-1
10
-1

(straight line) and v (dotted 1815 Hz 1116 Hz

-2 -2 -5/3
line) for Seq. 1b at 100y+ (left) 10 10
-5/3
and 15y+ (right). Vertical lines

E11, E22 [m2 s-2 Hz-1]

E11, E22 [m2 s-2 Hz ]

-1
Nyquist cutoff frequencies 10-3 10-3
determined from mean velocity -4 -4
10 10
and sample size
-5 -5
10 10

-6 -6
10 10

-7 -7
10 10

10-8 10-8
101 102 103 101 102 103
Freq. [Hz] Freq. [Hz]

sequences. At the same time the high-magnification data similar Reynolds number [e.g., Figs. 16, 17 by Wu and
set (Seq. 1b) overestimates the rms vorticity which could Moin (2009)].
be related to pixel locking effects present in the wall-nor-
mal velocity component v (see Fig. 5, top right). 3.7 Estimation of the wall shear rate

3.6 Velocity spectra estimation The normalization of boundary layer data is performed

The acquired sequences are both sufficiently long and tem-
porally well resolved to allow the estimation of frequency
spectra of the velocity components. Figure 14 shows the
power spectrum for u at y+ = 15 and y+ = 100 obtained
for Seq. 1b by averaging multiple Hanning window spectra
of 2,048 point subsamples at a stride of 512. Up to frequen-
cies of about 1 kHz the spectra follow a nearly linear decay
in energy. Beyond this frequency, the spectra are affected
by the finite size sampling window IW. The 20-kHz
sequence data presented in Fig. 14 were processed with a
sampling window of 48 pixel width (IWx = 0.94 mm) and
an image separation of 2 frames. With a mean velocity of
u ≈ 2.1 m/s at 15y+ this results in an effective sample time
of:
IWx
tIW = ≈ 4.48 · 10−4 s
u linearly related u+ = y+. Measurements of the shear stress
The inverse 1/tIW provides an estimate of the highest
resolvable frequencies: 2,233 Hz at 15y+ and 3,630 Hz at
100y+. These values match the relative difference in the
Nyquist cutoff frequencies shown in Fig. 14.
Due to the comparatively low turbulence of the channel
flow (Reτ = 240) the typically observed k −5/3 decay in
the power spectrum is practically nonexistent indicating
the absence of an inertial subrange. Rather, the presenta-
tion of these spectra intends to demonstrate the feasibil-
ity of spectral estimation using temporally resolved PIV
data. Estimation of spatial power spectra from high-reso-
lution PIV recordings has been demonstrated for instance
by Herpin et al. (2008). Overall, the spectra match those
reported in the literature for turbulent boundary layer at
using inner scaling based on the friction velocity uτ which
is linearly related to the shear stress τw:
∂u 
τw = µ  (3)
∂y y=0

τw ∂u 
uτ = = ν  (4)
ρ ∂y y=0
For the estimation of shear velocity uτ several approaches
are commonly used, such as the Clauser method (Clauser
1954) which estimates the shear stress through a nonlinear
fit of the data from the logarithmic outer layer to Prandtl’s
law of the wall. Other approaches rely on the properties of
the laminar sublayer in which the velocity increases line-
arly with increasing distance from the wall, that is, the non-
(2) dimensional wall-normal coordinate and the velocity are
are performed using protruding sensors, such as hot wires
and fences (Fernholz et al. 1996; Ruedi et al. 2003), laser
Doppler velocimetry (Naqwi and Reynolds 1987; Czar-
ske et al. 2002; Shirai et al. 2006), laser gradient meters
(Obi et al. 1996), oil film interferometry (Fernholz et al.
1996; Ruedi et al. 2003) or even MEMS devices employ-
ing hotwires (Löfdahl et al. 2003) or hot films (Jiang et al.
1996). Other shear stress measurement devices are based
on micro-pillars (Brücker et al. 2005; Gnanamanickam
et al. 2013, shear sensitive films (Amili and Soria 2011)
and micro-optical devices (Ayaz et al. 2011; Miyagi et al.
2000).
The wall shear measurement technique presented here
is a velocity gradient-based approach and follows the

13
17 Page 12 of 17 Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17

streamwise velocity for the given wall distance.

+
Figure
u (2.08
+
y) 16
+ +
u (1.55 y )
3 + +
u (1.02 y )
+ +
u (0.50 y )

+
u
1

0
0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
Time [ s ]

Fig. 16  Temporal evolution of the streamwise velocity in the viscous

sublayer for 1,024 time steps (0.0512 s) matching the time frame of
Fig. 15

3 1400
Fig. 15  Visualization of temporal particle movement for Seq. 1b
along single wall-parallel line of pixels at difference wall distances.
1360
Time axis is along horizontal, spanning 1,024 time steps (0.0512 s)
2
1320
approach proposed by Kähler et al.Kähler et al. (2006) by

y [ µm ]
evaluating imaged particle trajectories in the immediate
+

1280
y

vicinity of the wall. Figure 15 shows the particle movement
very close to the tunnel wall at distances of y ≈ 0.5y+ , 1y+
and 1.5y+. The visualizations are created by extracting sin-
gle lines of pixels at a fixed wall distance from each of the
images of the sequence and placing these lines side-by-side
such that the horizontal axis corresponds to a time axis.
Therefore, each horizontal pixel equals a time step of 50 µs.
Within this space-time map, the slope of the streak caused
by a given particle directly corresponds to the particle’s
velocity. With increasing wall distance, the slope increases
as expected. Temporal changes in the slope indicate veloc-
ity changes that can be observed to occur simultaneously
for all wall distances shown in Fig. 15. The length of the
streaks of up to a hundred and more time steps indicates
a sufficient light sheet thickness in this area to account for
the spanwise (out-of-plane) motion of the particles.
While the near-wall particle streak visualizations are
of qualitative nature, it is also possible to retrieve actual
velocity data from the image sequences using a rather
straightforward approach that has been utilized previously
by Nguyen et al. (2010) to estimate the mean wall shear
rate along curved interfaces. The method relies on the one-
dimensional cross-correlation of single, streamwise rows of
pixels that are taken at the same wall-normal distance but
separated by a few time steps (here 2–5 time steps). A one-
dimensional Gaussian peak fit at the location of maximum
correlation then provides sub-pixel accurate displacement
information, which, in conjunction with magnification
factor M and time difference t, yields an estimate of the
Linear fit:
1 y0 = 1181.33 µm
= 60.128 pixel 1240
m = 369.78 µm / (m/s)
-1
dU/dy = 2704.31 s
1200
0
1160
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
U [ m/s ]
Fig. 17  Mean streamwise velocity u obtained by single-line correla-
tion from Seq. 1b with respect to vertical distance (1 pixel ≡ 19.656 µ
m ≈ 0.265y+)
provides a short segment (1,024 time steps) of the time-
resolved, near-wall velocity at four wall distances. A ver-
tical distance of 2 pixels between the estimates is chosen
to guarantee minimal particle image-induced correlation
between adjacent velocity estimates as the imaged particles
typically cover less than 2 pixels vertically. The velocity
data in Fig. 16 were calculated using an image separation
of 4 time steps (200 µs) to improve the DVR and subse-
quently temporally filtered with a moving average of ±2
time steps.
Estimates of the mean streamwise velocity for each
wall distance are obtained by averaging the instantaneous
velocity estimates over the entire length of the sequences.
A least squares fitting to the linear portion of this data pro-
vides an estimate of the average wall shear rate γ̇ (Fig. 17)
that is directly proportional to the wall shear stress τw. The
line fit also provides a sub-pixel estimate of the actual wall

13
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17 Page 13 of 17 17

position where u = 0—assuming a nonslip condition at

the wall. At this point it should be pointed out that in com-
parison with most of the existing shear stress measurement 0.4

techniques, the described approach does not require cali-

bration, since the spatial derivative used in the estimation is
invariant with the magnification factor: 0.3

∂u 1 M (�x2 − �x1 )
γ̇ = ≈ (5)

P
∂y �t M (y2 − y1 )
0.2
where xi is the measured displacement in pixels and yi the
wall-normal distance in pixels. It does, however, require a
sufficient number of data points (pixels) within the viscous
0.1
sublayer.
Least squares fitting may also be applied to the instan-
taneous near-wall, streamwise velocity estimates, such as
those shown in Fig. 16, in order to estimate the instanta- 0
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
neous wall shear rate γ̇ (t). A sample of 1,024 time steps (τ - τavg)/τ’
(0.051 s) of the temporal evolution of the wall shear rate is
shown in Fig. 18. Prior to plotting and averaging, the shear
Fig. 19  Probability density function of the wall shear rate γ̇ obtained
rate data have been median filtered in time using a kernel of from Seq. 1b
±3 time steps. The resulting data provide an estimate of the
instantaneous wall shear stress τw, albeit averaged across
the cross section of the light sheet (≈ 5 × 0.22mm2). 10
-1

Table 4 summarizes the averaged shear rate for two

acquired sequences obtained by either averaging the
unfiltered and filtered instantaneous wall shear rates or -3
-2
10
by least squares fitting to the averaged near-wall velocity
distribution, as determined with the single-line correlation
approach.
PSD [ Hz-1]

-3
10

4000 1.5 -4
10
du/dy [ s ]
-1

Normalized

3000
1
2000
0.5
1000

0 0 10-5
0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1 101 102 103
Time [ s ]
Freq. [Hz]

Fig. 18  Temporal evolution of the wall shear rate estimated through Fig. 20  Spectra of wall shear rate obtained from Seq. 1b
least squares fitting to data in Fig. 16 for 1,024 time steps (0.0512 s).
Line at 2,700 s −1 indicates mean shear rate obtained from 43,500
time steps
The normalized probability density function of the
Table 4  Estimates mean shear strain for acquired sequences, filtering measured wall shear rate γ̇ is provided in Fig. 19. The
by mean of median filtering fluctuation, skew and kurtosis of the wall shear rate have
Seq. Duration Number of (Unfiltered) γ̇ Average shear From
respective values of σγ̇ = 0.41, S = 0.80 and K = 3.41.
num. (s) samples N (s −1) rate (filtered) γ̇ Ū(y) γ̇ These values are in good agreement both with previously
(–) (s −1) (s −1) published experimental results [see e.g., (Alfredsson et al.
1988; Colella and Keith 2003; Silva et al. 2014; Keirsbulck
1a 4.367 43,674 2,797 2,755 2,714
et al. 2012; Mathis et al. 2013)] and with reported DNS
1b 2.184 43,674 2,784 2,708 2,704
results (Hu et al. 2006; Örlü and Schlatter 2011).

13
17 Page 14 of 17
Fig. 21  Cross-correlation between the wall shear rate γ̇ and the
velocity components u (top), v (middle) and spanwise vorticity ωz
(bottom)
The temporally resolved wall shear can be further used
to determine the corresponding frequency spectrum as pre-
sented in Fig. 20. The spectrum was obtained by averaging
multiple Hanning window spectra of 2,048 point subsam-
ples at a stride distance of 512. The wall shear spectral den-
sity varies with f −3 as reported previously by Keirsbulck
et al. (2012) for both experimental and DNS results for
channels flows with Reτ in a similar range as the present
measurements. At about 300 Hz (0.1f +) the power spec-
trum begins to depart from the f −3 trend due to measure-
ment noise.
With the additional availability of the correspond-
ing temporally resolved wall-normal velocity profile, the
wall shear rate can be used to calculate space-time cor-
relations such as presented in Fig. 6. In these plots each
horizontal line at position y+ represents the normalized
cross-correlation of the shear rate γ̇ (t) with the time trace
of a given scalar variable for a fixed wall distance y+ [i.e.,
u(t, y+ ), v(t, y+ ) or ωz (y+ , t)]. The width of the plots covers
512 time steps in each direction (±69t +).
The interpretation of the space-time correlation maps
is as follows: a high correlation to the left of t + = 0 indi-
cates a delayed response of the wall shear γ̇ to the respec-
tive scalar variable u, v or ωz. Bearing this in mind, sev-
eral interesting features can be observed: The wall shear
13
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17
is mostly affected by the motions in the viscous sublayer
with a rapidly decreasing influence within the buffer layer.
Motions in the upper layers (>50y+) show no correlation
with the wall shear. Close to the wall (<10y+), the shear
rate shows a symmetric response to the streamwise com-
ponent u and skews toward delayed response with increas-
ing wall distances (Fig. 21, top). Since the wall-normal
velocity component v drops to zero near the wall, this area
shows no correlation with the wall shear (Fig. 21, middle).
The peak correlation of Rτ ,v = 0.58 located at position
(−3.8t + , 14.7y+) coincides with the peak streamwise fluc-
tuation umax
′+ (c.f. Fig. 8). For wall bounded turbulence, the
peak turbulence production is also located at approximately
this wall distance.
Compared with the previous velocity correlations, the
correlation map for the spanwise vorticity Rτ ,ω (Fig. 21,
bottom) exhibits a more symmetric pattern in time with
the maximum correlation approaching unity at the wall as
to be expected (vorticity at the wall is identical to the wall
shear rate). A negative correlation peak of Rτ ,v = −0.40
is located at (−4.6t + , 17.8y+) near the peak for Rτ ,v. This
negative correlation represents the response of the wall
shear stress to opposite signed vorticity in the turbulence
producing layer.
4 Discussion
The large quantity of temporally well resolved velocity
samples made available with the described PIV implemen-
tation suggests it as a possible alternative to single-point
measurement techniques such as laser Doppler anemom-
etry (LDA) and hotwire anemometry (HWA). Compared
with single-point measurement techniques, the presented
PIV implementation additionally provides simultaneous
data across the (narrow) field of view and allows the calcu-
lation of, for instance, spatial correlations and differential
quantities such as the spanwise vorticity component. How-
ever, the finite size sampling window (here: 8.5x + × 3.2y+
or 17.0x + × 1.6y+) imposes a certain amount of spatial
averaging in the data. In comparison, the probe volume
of an LDA typically has a diameter of 30–100 µm which
corresponds to y+ ≈ 0.7 − 1.5 in the present application.
Employing optimized LDA configurations, spatial resolu-
tions better than 10 µm have been reported in the literature
(Czarske et al. 2002; Shirai et al. 2006).
Hotwires for wall bounded turbulence measurements
have reported diameters of d = 0.5–5 µm and lengths of
about 0.5–1 mm in spanwise direction (e.g., Hutchins et al.
2009; Stanislas et al. 2008), which would, respectively,
correspond to 0.007 − 0.07d + and 7 − 13z+ in the present
application. In comparison, the light sheet for the reported
PIV measurements has a thickness of about 200 µm
Exp Fluids (2015) 56:17
translating to 2.7z+. As outlined in Table 2, the PIV fram-
ing frequencies of 10 and 20 kHz correspond to sampling
intervals of 0.274t + and 0.137t +. However, the finite width
of the samples (e.g., IWx = 64 pixels) imposes a tempo-
ral averaging of the sampled flow of t + = �x + /u+ ≈ 3t +
at 15y+ reducing to ≈ 1.6t + at 200y+. In comparison,
reported HWA measurements indicate sampling intervals
of 0.5 − 1 t + (Hutchins et al. 2009).
In terms of sampling duration, typical HWA applica-
tions sample the flow at least an order of magnitude longer
than for the presented PIV data sequences which only
cover between 490 and 2,100 boundary layer thicknesses
(see Table 2). This duration may be insufficient to properly
sample the turbulent flow as exemplified by the improved
convergence of Seq. 2 (180,000 samples at 20 kHz) in com-
parison with Seq. 1b (43,000 samples at 20 kHz). The sam-
pling duration can be further increased through a reduction
in image width since the described measurement approach
only needs to cover a single interrogation window (e.g.,
64 pixel).
The presented high-speed PIV measurement technique
was applied to a duct flow of moderate turbulence with
a moderate free stream velocity of 4 m/s. When apply-
ing the presented measurement technique to faster flows,
two aspects must be taken into consideration. First of all,
the sampling frequency must be increased to keep parti-
cle image displacements to magnitudes of roughly 10–20
pixels in image space. Secondly, the camera exposure has
to be further reduced to prevent excessive particle image
streaking, typically to less than 25 % of the exposure
time. Both factors, increased frame rate and reduced expo-
sure time, require an equivalent increase of laser power to
achieve a similar exposure of the image detector. With the
utilized imaging and illumination equipment, sensible PIV
recordings are feasible down to exposure times of 5 µs with
corresponding frame rates of 50 kHz. This translates to a
fivefold increase of applicability of the measurement tech-
nique to flow velocities in the 20 m/s range at a comparable
geometric imaging configuration (i.e., same magnification
factor).
An extension of the measurement technique for use at
higher flow velocities beyond 10 m/s requires either a cam-
era of increased sensitivity or a more powerful light source
or, preferably, a combination of both. Continuously oper-
ating lasers, comparable to the one utilized in the present
application, are available with output powers in excess
of 20 Watts. Pulsed light sources based on diode pumped
solid state lasers are also capable of providing sufficient
pulse energy (≥ 100 µJ) even at frequencies beyond
100 kHz. Their use has to be balanced against their higher
cost, more complex handling and, in particular, reduced
image quality stemming from nonuniform intensity distri-
butions and pulse-to-pulse variations that are not present
Page 15 of 17 17
for the continuous-wave laser source utilized in the pre-
sented setup.
A possible alternative may also be offered through
pulsed light-emitting diodes (Willert et al. 2010). At pre-
sent, the fluence achievable with overdriven high-power
diodes approaches 2 W /mm2 which is of similar magni-
tude as the fluence for the 5W CW laser used in the pre-
sent experiments. However, the primary challenge of LED-
based illumination is the collimation of the emitted light
into thin light sheets which is hampered by the wide angu-
lar emission characteristics of LEDs (e.g., high spreading
angle).
The high-speed PIV measurement approach described
herein can further benefit from improved sensor tech-
nology, in particular with regard to light sensitivity and
reduced pixel size. In this regard the PCO dimax HS4
(PCO AG., Germany) used for the current measurements
exhibits a roughly four times higher sensitivity in compari-
son with the Photron SA-5. Therefore, the combination of
more powerful laser and more sensitive camera should—
in principle—allow measurements of flows in the 100 m/s
range.
The technique can be readily extended to retrieve all
three velocity components through the addition of a sec-
ond camera in a classical stereoscopic PIV configuration
(Prasad 2000; Willert 1997). Given that the narrow field of
view has a high aspect ratio (W ≪ H ) the use of oblique
view correcting Scheimpflug mounts is not essential which
can further simplify the imaging setup.
With regard to the presented wall shear estimation
method, it should be kept in mind that the viscous sub-
layer has to be sufficiently resolved in order to apply the
single-line correlation technique. In the present case, the
height of the viscous sublayer was imaged with 10-20
pixels on the sensor, corresponding to about 5 wall units.
Depending on the application, this resolution is not always
achievable and requires high-magnification imaging (e.g.,
long-distance microscope). However, with increased mag-
nification the effective seeding density typically decreases
(Kähler et al. 2006, 2012) which in turn affects the reliable
recovery of unsteady shear rate estimates using the single-
line correlation approach. Furthermore, image aberration
generally increases with increased magnification leading to
blurred particle images and further compounds the problem
(Kähler et al. 2012).
5 Summary
The primary objective of presented study was to demon-
strate the capability of nowadays readily available high-
speed imaging in combination with large image counts for
the retrieval of statistically converged flow quantities in
13
17 Page 16 of 17
low-speed turbulent air flows. Contrary to conventional dou-
ble-pulsed PIV, the setup uses a continuous-wave (CW) laser
and does not require a laser timing generator as the particle
image exposure is directly controlled by limiting the expo-
sure of the camera sensor (e.g., electronic shutter). This in
itself reduces the complexity of the setup. Although applied
to an air flow, the technique is equally suitable for measure-
ment of water flows and can be extended to provide three-
component data by means of a multi-camera imaging setup.
In the present application, the technique permitted
the efficient estimation of wall-normal profiles of mean
and fluctuating velocity components such as the Reyn-
olds stresses. Measurements down into the viscous sub-
layer of the turbulent boundary layer inside a square duct
were possible using rather high magnifications of 1:2 and
1:1 and sufficient seeding density in this region. Using a
wall-parallel, one-dimensional cross-correlation method,
it was shown that reliable velocity estimates are feasible
in the single wall unit range. These data can then be used
to directly estimate the instantaneous wall shear rate γ̇
and with it the shear stress τw and corresponding friction
velocity uτ. Finally, the large sequence lengths in excess
of 100,000 samples permit the estimation of spectra and
space-time correlation maps from the recovered data.
​The described measurement approach provides a breadth
of flow-specific information that qualifies its use in a com-
plementary fashion to established methods such as HWA,
LDA and “classical” PIV.
Acknowledgments The author would like to thank his colleagues
J. Klinner, M. Schroll and M. Beversdorff for their assistance in the
wind tunnel setup and PIV measurements. Further acknowledgment
goes to N. Buchmann for his valuable comments while preparing the
manuscript. Finally, the support of PCO GmbH is gratefully acknowl-
edged who provided the Dimax-HS4 high-speed camera for evalua-
tion purposes. The recommendations by the anonymous reviewers
significantly improved the overall quality of the manuscript.
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