Stereoscopic measurements of particle dispersion in microgravity turbulent flow

The presence of particles in turbulent flows adds complexity to an already difficult subject. The work described in this research dissertation was intended to characterize the effects of inertia, isolated from gravity, on the dispersion of solid particles in a turbulent air flow. The experiment consisted of releasing particles of various sizes in an enclosed box of fan-generated, homogenous, isotropic, and stationary turbulent airflow and examining the particle behavior in a microgravity environment. The turbulence box was characterized in ground-based experiments using laser Doppler velocimetry techniques. Microgravity was established by free-floating the experiment apparatus during the parabolic trajectory of NASA's KC-135 reduced gravity aircraft. The microgravity generally lasted about 20 seconds, with about fifty parabolas per flight and one flight per day over a testing period of four days.; To cover a broad range of flow regimes of interest, particles with Stokes numbers (St) of 1 to 300 were released in the turbulence box. The three-dimensional measurements of particle motion were made using a three-camera stereo imaging system with a particle-tracking algorithm. Digital photogrammetric techniques were used to determine the particle locations in three-dimensional space from the calibrated camera images. The epipolar geometry constraint was used to identify matching particles from the three different views and a direct spatial intersection scheme determined the coordinates of particles in three-dimensional space. Using velocity and acceleration constraints, particles in a sequence of frames were matched resulting in particle tracks and dispersion measurements.; The goal was to compare the dispersion of different Stokes number particles in zero gravity and decouple the effects of inertia and gravity on the dispersion. Results show that higher inertia particles disperse less in zero gravity, in agreement with current models. Particles with St ≈ 200–300 dispersed about $110$ of the dispersion measured in St ≈ 1 particles. Similarly, fluid points were shown to disperse 25 times as much as St ≈ 1 particles. Particles with more inertia also have particle velocity autocorrelations that decay more slowly. Comparisons are made with previous experimental work and indicate 40% less dispersion with gravity for St ≈ 1 particles and a slower decorrelation rate.