Imaginary particle tracking accelerometry based on time-resolved velocity fields

An accurate calculation of material acceleration is important for particle image velocimetry-based pressure reconstruction. Therefore, an imaginary particle tracking accelerometry (IPTA) approach based on time-resolved velocity fields is described in this paper for a better determination of acceleration. Multi-velocity fields and a least squares polynomial fitting of the velocity along imaginary particle trajectories are introduced to improve the acceleration accuracy. The process of imaginary particle tracking is operated iteratively until a convergence condition is satisfied. Then the Lagrangian acceleration (or the material acceleration in the Eulerian coordinates) is acquired by the first-order time derivation of the fitting polynomial. In addition, the sensitivity of the IPTA approach to different levels of noise and parameters that affect its performance is investigated. A criterion is proposed to determine these parameters when using IPTA to calculate the acceleration. Performance of the IPTA method is compared with other velocity-based accelerometry methods, including both Eulerian and Lagrangian methods. Assessments are conducted in a synthetic solid body rotation flow, a synthetic flow of a vortex ring, and an experimental jet flow. The results show that IPTA is a robust method for experimental acceleration determination that can both improve the accuracy of acceleration and provide better physical characteristics of the flow field.