Triple-pulse Particle Image Velocimeter for the Simultaneous Measurement of the Velocity and Acceleration Fields of Fluid and Flexible Structure under

A triple pulse PIV concept and a third order correlation method was developed and demonstrated improvements in accuracy and spatial resolution of the velocity and acceleration measurements in an impinging jet flow field. A low-cost system based on overdriven LEDs, uniquely designed single frame camera for capturing the images, efficient scattering techniques, and innovative algorithms were explored during Phase I in order to build a packaged system during Phase II. The proposed packaged system will have the capability to simultaneously measure velocity and acceleration fields of both the fluid and flexible structure undergoing coupled fluid-structure interactions and will be useful for large scale facilities such as towing tanks, water and wind tunnels; mounting to test vehicle; and synchronizing with other measurement acquisition devices. This low-cost technology will aid the research in academic and government research labs as a scientific and engineering tool and will also provide excellent benefits for vehicle designers in both the commercial and military sectors. The proposed technologies and knowledge generated from this project could also be helpful to achieve and maintain undersea dominance, improve mobile autonomous environmental sensing, maximize system performance through adaptation to the environment, and to improve environmental predictive capabilities. In addition, they can be useful to platform survivability and signature reduction, autonomous and unmanned vehicle mobility, develop modeling and simulation tools, develop efficient ship design analysis tools, and to modernize the existing platforms.