Measures of fluid acceleration via PTVA

Acceleration is of primal relevance in Fluid Mechanics (it shows the effect of the combination of the forces on a fluid) but only few Lagrangian measures of it can be found in literature. Turbulence has applications in almost every fields of environmental, industrial and civil engineering but, so far, is the last field of classical Mechanics not completely understood. This work describes Particle Tracking Velocimetry and Accelerometry (PTVA), a self-adaptive method able to extract accurate Lagrangian measures of velocity and acceleration, and its applications to electromagnetically forced quasi-two- dimensional turbulent-like flows (whose main targets are to study turbulence and to control the flow to achieve efficient mixing). Turbulent-like properties of these flows are shown, as well as measures of the fields of velocity, acceleration and Navier-Stokes equations terms. Zero acceleration points and efficient mixing are described and characterized. This work should be useful to students, engineers and scientists working in the field of environmental, industrial and engineering Fluid Mechanics, especially in the field of turbulence.

Autorentext

Simone Ferrari holds a PhD in Territorial Engineering from the University of Cagliari (Italy) in collaboration with Imperial College London (UK) (February 2007). His main scientific interest is in experimental research on fluid flows in the field of environmental, industrial and civil engineering. He is happily married with Marta.