Optical Methods for Data Processing in Heat and Fluid Flow

Preface

It is difficult to overstate the importance of metrology in science, it provides the data on which theories are accepted or rejected and can force a rethinking of ideas formerly held true for many centuries. This book contributes to the science of measurement and is concerned with the use of optical techniques and data processing to quantify fluid mechanic and heat transfer properties as well as closely related topics. The range and diversity of fluid and heat applications necessitates a correspondingly large range of measurement techniques and devices, some of which are not optically based but in the current context provide useful data for comparison purposes. Examples of both optical and non-optical techniques and devices include, thermocouples, strain-gauges, pitot-static tubes, piezoelectric transducers, infrared thermal imaging, laser Doppler velocimeters, hot-wire probes holography, schlieren, nuclear magnetic resonance, and condenser microphones.

The rapid development of these techniques over the last few decades ensures the list of methods continually increases and, of course, provides the raison d'etre of this current collection of Chapters. Optical methods have been used for centuries to qualitatively examine flows. The sketches of Leonardo da Vinci capturing the three-dimensional swirls of flowing water provides proof of this in a most aesthetically pleasing way. Why then the huge increase in fluid and heat measurement over the last three or four decades? The ...