Measurements in a Turbulent Channel Flow by Means of an LDV Profile Sensor

Spatially and temporally resolved velocity measurements in wall-bounded turbulent flows remain a challenge. Contrary to classical laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) measurements, the laser Doppler velocity profile sensor (LDV-PS) allows the combined measurement of tracer particle position and velocity, which makes it a promising tool. To assess its feasibility a commercial LDV-PS is employed in a turbulent channel flow at Re_τ =350 . Additionally, the measurement and signal-processing accuracies of velocity and location are evaluated for various tracer-object sizes and velocities. On this basis, the turbulent channel flow measurements are evaluated and compared to reference data from direct numerical simulations. Thus, potentials of the LDV-PS are investigated for different regions of the flow and various data processing routines as well as the experimental practice are discussed from an application perspective.