Measurement of temperature and velocity fields in a convective fluid flow in air using schlieren images

A convective fluid flow in air could be regulated if the physical process were better understood. Temperature and velocity measurements are required in order to obtain a proper characterization of a convective fluid flow. In this study, we show that a classical schlieren system can be used for simultaneous measurements of temperature and velocity in a convective fluid flow in air. The schlieren technique allows measurement of the average fluid temperature and velocity integrated in the direction of the test beam. Therefore, in our experiments we considered surfaces with isothermal conditions. Temperature measurements are made by relating the intensity level of each pixel in a schlieren image to the corresponding knife-edge position measured at the exit focal plane of the schlieren system. The same schlieren images were also used to measure the velocity of the fluid flow by using optical flow techniques. The algorithm implemented analyzes motion between consecutive schlieren frames to obtain a tracked sequence and finally velocity fields. The proposed technique was applied to measure the temperature and velocity fields in natural convection of air due to unconfined and confined heated rectangular plates. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America