Identification of secondary flow pattern in a heated curved rectangular channel using image processing technique

This paper introduces a new application of pattern recognition techniques to the problem of automatic identification of secondary flow patterns in heated curved rectangular channels. The proposed algorithm is based on two observations. Firstly, in the study of secondary flow patterns, it is found that a smaller pair of secondary vortices is generated when the flowrate of a fluid in a curved passage is beyond certain threshold value. Secondly, humans can easily identify the centre of the vortex by visual inspection. This paper proposes an algorithm that can automatically realise the existence and location of such vortices. Such information can be used to provide a feedback signal for the control of the flow within the channel