The Optical Flow Method Research of Particle Image Velocimetry

As a new experimental technique of aerodynamics, optical flow test technique gradually attracts more and more attention for the advantages of vector field measurement of pixel scale resolution and strong smoothness ability. By means of scalar constraint equation combined with smoothness constraint condition, optical flow test technique can measure global velocity vector field of high space resolution. In this paper, the theory and algorithm of integration minimization optical flow velocimetry were studied, an verification experiment, in which tracer particle images was acquired by high speed camera and velocity vector field was calculated by optical flow algorithm, was completed. The result calculated by optical flow algorithm was compared with the result calculated by PIV algorithm, and both results were significantly correlated. The research shows that optical flow test technique possesses the advantages of space resolution and velocity field smoothness. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.