A high-speed all-digital technique for cycle-resolved 2-D flow measurement and flow visualisation within SI engine cylinders

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is now a well-established planar flow measurement technique for the study of in-cylinder flow fields in internal combustion engines. Here the authors describe a turnkey, high-speed digital imaging system that provides combined real-time flow visualisation and rapidly processed PIV data in an industrial optical research engine facility. The system is based on commercially available, high-speed imaging and laser technology and conventional digital cross-correlation processing to provide cycle-resolved PIV data and flow visualisation within timescales appropriate for engine development. A simple variation on the synchronisation scheme also allows the acquisition of tens to thousands of flow visualisation sequences and PIV maps at the same crank angle, thus giving the potential for the study of cycle-to-cycle flow variability and its effect on combustion stability in a suitably instrumented optical engine. The technique may also find applications in other unsteady or oscillatory flows of importance in aerodynamics, acoustics, mixing, and heat transfer.