Laser scanning, corresponding to time-dependent deflections of laser beam across a field of interest, can provide relatively high illumination intensity of small particles, thereby allowing implementation of high image-density particle image velocimetry (PIV). Scanning techniques employing a rotating (multi-faceted) mirror, an oscillating mirror, and an acousto-optic deflector are addressed. Issues of illumination intensity and exposure, rate of scan of the laser beam, and retrace time of the scanning beam are assessed. Representative classes of unsteady separated flows investigated with laser-scanning PIV are described.

No abstract

No abstract

Forced excitation of a long cylinder having a mild variation of diameter along its midspan generates period-doubled vortex formation. The onset of this localized, period-doubled response involves formation of diamond-shaped vortical structures during every other cycle of the cylinder oscillation.

A cylinder having mild variations in diameter along its span is subjected to controlled excitation at frequencies above and below the inherent shedding frequency from the corresponding two-dimensional cylinder. The response of the near wake is characterized in terms of timeline visualization and velocity traces, spectra, and phase plane representations. It is possible to generate several types of vortex formation, depending upon the excitation frequency. Globally locked-in, three-dimensional vortex formation can occur along the entire span of the flow. Regions of locally locked-in and period-doubled vortex formation can exist along different portions of the span provided the excitation frequency is properly tuned. Unlike the classical subharmonic instability in free shear flows, the occurrence of period-doubled vortex formation does not involve vortex coalescence; instead, the flow structure alternates between two different states.