Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

*The funding requested is for an upgrade to volumetric velocity measurement capabilities from the existing planar Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system. The system relies on laser illumination and digital imaging to measure all three velocity components in a flow volume. Velocity measurements are heavily used by the applicants in a range of cutting-edge research applications. The applicants have active research groups exploring topics ranging from laminar separation bubbles on airfoils for aerodynamic design of the next generation of micro air vehicles and turbomachinery, to vortex impact events with deformable surfaces for energy harvesting to power distributed environmental sensors, to understanding the information flow in fluid-structure interaction problems as a novel tool for assessing how civil structures interact with one another in a windy environment, amongst other potential applications. All of these research topics, which are supported by national and international government and industrial funding, involve inherently three-dimensional flows that require volumetric velocimetry to elucidate the underlying physics towards developing improved engineering solutions. Thus, the lack of adequate research tools is seriously hampering the progress of the applicants' research programs and denies valuable opportunities for HQP training with state-of-the-art equipment. It also does not allow the applicants to pursue new and innovative research directions stemming from their current activities and limits their ability to compete with leading research laboratories. The proposed TOMO PIV system is carefully designed to address these issues and provide new training opportunities for HQP. The proposal maximizes the utilization of existing equipment and uses additional funding provided from the applicants' grants and institution.