Validation of an analysis method for particle image velocimetry of turbulent unsteady flows in turbomachinery

This paper presents a post-processing analysis that combines several statistical tools to validate experimental results in a particle image velocimetry analysis on unsteady flows in the turbomachinery field. The method was developed in three steps: verification of the number of acquired images, verification of the meaningfulness of the velocity averages, and identification of the zones characterized by the greatest error on the average estimation. The statistical approach allows one to identify the possible error sources, discriminating between experimental problems due to the test rig, the turbulent nature of the flow, and structures unidentifiable by a single frequency.