Diffusion-induced bias in near-wall velocimetry Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The Brownian fluctuations of the colloidal tracers often used in microscale velocimetry are typically isotropic in the bulk. In the near-wall region, however, these fluctuations are strongly affected by the hydrodynamic interaction with the wall and by the no-flux condition imposed by the wall. These wall effects can, under appropriate conditions, bias measurements based on colloidal tracers, potentially leading to significant overestimation of near-wall velocities. We use a FokkerPlanck description to generate probability density functions of the distances from a single wall sampled by the matched particles that are present in the same window at both the start and end of a time interval. The importance of the resulting bias for experimental parameters is then quantified in terms of the size of the imaged region and measurement interval. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications for near-wall velocimetry measurements.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF FLUID MECHANICS

author list (cited authors)

  • Sadr, R., Hohenegger, C., Li, H., Mucha, P. J., & Yoda, M.

citation count

  • 41

complete list of authors

  • Sadr, Reza||Hohenegger, Christel||Li, Haifeng||Mucha, Peter J||Yoda, Minami

publication date

  • April 2007