Abstract. Simultaneous whole field velocity and heat transfer measurements were performed to characterize the interaction of a single rising ellipsoidal bubble with the free convection flow from a heated flat surface. This design note reports on the optimization of a purpose built high frame rate time-resolved digital particle image velocimetry system, which was used to map the bubble wake interaction with a heated solid boundary. The system used here was highly optimized; a refractive index matching method has been used to accommodate the depth of field limit of the imaging camera, and a special laser sheet optical arrangement was employed to accommodate spectral dispersion of the laser operating in multicolour mode.

Keywords: bubble flows, digital particle image velocimetry, light sheet generation, refractive index matching, optical path length compensation

Print publication: Issue 6 (June 2004)
Received 3 March 2004
Published 13 May 2004