High-Resolution Two-Phase Velocimetry Of Aspherical Particles Using Wavelet-Based Optical Flow Velocimetry (WOFV) Benchmarked With Fully Resolved Direct Numerical Simulations
Christopher Geschwindner (1), Maren Werner (1), Laurent André (2), Alexander Nicolas (3), Brian Peterson (3), Matthias Meinke (2), Wolfgang Schröder (2), Andreas Dreizler (1), Benjamin Böhm (1)
1. Technical University of Darmstadt, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Reactive Flows and Diagnostics, Darmstadt, Germany
2. RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Aerodynamics, Aachen, Germany
3. University of Edinburgh, School of Engineering, Institute of Multiscale Thermofluids, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
DOI:
Several techniques exist to measure the carrier and dispersed phases in multi-phase flows. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) analyzes the carrier phase by cross-correlating particle images, but its resolution is limited by the size of the interrogation window, making it difficult to resolve fine-scale turbulent structures. Particle tracking algorithms capture translational motion of dispersed particles well, but struggle with rotational motion, especially for irregular and aspherical particles. Currently, there is no method that universally measures both the carrier phase velocity field and the translational and rotational motions of dispersed particles. This study evaluates wavelet-based optical flow velocimetry (wOFV) for motion estimation in multi-phase flows, focusing on dispersed ellipsoidal particles and their surrounding turbulent carrier flow using synthetic image data. The research proceeds in two phases: first, the rigid motion of ellipses, including translational and rotational components, is analyzed using wOFV-generated dense motion fields. The results highlight the critical role of the regularization weighting parameter λ. Higher λ values improve translational motion estimation, while an optimal λ avoids under-regularization and non-physical structures in rotational motion. wOFV maintains accuracy in combined motion scenarios with optimal λ values. In the second phase, wOFV captures the turbulent carrier flow around an aspherical particle, benchmarked against DNS data and compared to PIV. wOFV outperforms PIV in resolving finer structures near the particle surface and in accurately representing the wake region. Error analyses confirm wOFV’s superior performance, with optimal results within a specific λ range. In conclusion, wOFV is a highly effective tool for the analysis of multi-phase flow dynamics, providing greater resolution and accuracy than PIV, especially in complex scenarios involving aspherical particles.
