Progress Towards Full-Scale (In Situ) Flow Measurements

Recent advances in tracer, illumination, and camera technology, paired with new processing algorithms, have been pushing the limit of scale for three-dimensional flow measurements. The present study reflects on the state-of-the-art and discusses the required steps to enable full-scale, in situ flow measurements in very large measurement volumes. In particular, we focus on industrial and environmental applications, where the measurement time, the processing time, and the costs all have to be minimized. A single-camera approach that enables measurements with natural illumination in very large volumes is presented. The required infrastructure is discussed along with experiments to quantify the experimental errors of the proposed single-camera approach.