March-May | 2018

This was a semester end project give to me in Advanced Fluid Mechanics II (ME260B). Our goal was to select a topic relating to fluid dynamics, do a survey of research papers, and present our findings to the professor and class as well as preparing a report. I chose to do mine on 3D Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) because I had some previous exposure to this topic while assisting Rachael as an undergraduate research assistant.

3D PTV is a measurement technique that uses light tracer particles in a flow. Using multiple images captured in quick succession, the flow can then be recreated by following the movement of the particles. While simple in theory, this method was difficult in both computation and implementation.

In my survey of 5 major papers, I chose to cover the basics and reasons for this measurement technique and the evolution of its technology and theories over time. From what I surveyed, 3D PTV evolved drastically from its advent in the late 80's to the present day, especially in the capabilities of imaging and data processing power. However, the core set up of using multiple cameras at different angles was still fundamentally the same. The theory involved in the post-processing proved to be the most studied within 3D PTV. Many of the more recent papers dealt with different mathematical and computational models to eliminate mistakes in imaging as well as filling in the inevitable missing gaps between image sequences.

Through this assignment, I gained more insight to academic approaches to research as well as literature surveys necessary before even starting to research a topic. I also enjoyed learning more about a topic that I probably would not have learned about in a standard undergraduate course load. As a side note, this was also my first time using Latex to prepare my report and I found it to be extremely powerful, especially for preparing reports. Below is my final report.