Flow visualization

Abstract: For centuries, flow visualization has been the art of making fluid motion visible in physical and biological systems. Although such flow patterns can be, in principle, described by the Navier-Stokes equations, extracting the velocity and pressure fields directly from the images is challenging. We addressed this problem by developing hidden fluid mechanics (HFM), a physics-informed deep-learning framework capable of encoding the Navier-Stokes equations into the neural networks while being agnostic to the geometry or the initial and boundary conditions. We demonstrate HFM for several physical and biomedical problems by extracting quantitative information for which direct measurements may not be possible. HFM is robust to low resolution and substantial noise in the observation data, which is important for potential applications.

Abstract: Blood flow in arteries is dominated by unsteady flow phenomena. The cardiovascular system is an internal flow loop with multiple branches in which a complex liquid circulates. A nondimensional frequency parameter, the Womersley number, governs the relationship between the unsteady and viscous forces. Normal arterial flow is laminar with secondary flows generated at curves and branches. The arteries are living organs that can adapt to and change with the varying hemodynamic conditions. In certain circumstances, unusual hemodynamic conditions create an abnormal biological response. Velocity profile skewing can create pockets in which the direction of the wall shear stress oscillates. Atherosclerotic disease tends to be localized in these sites and results in a narrowing of the artery lumen—a stenosis. The stenosis can cause turbulence and reduce flow by means of viscous head losses and flow choking. Very high shear stresses near the throat of the stenosis can activate platelets and thereby induce thrombosis, which can totally block blood flow to the heart or brain. Detection and quantification of stenosis serve as the basis for surgical intervention. In the future, the study of arterial blood flow will lead to the prediction of individual hemodynamic flows in any patient, the development of diagnostic tools to quantify disease, and the design of devices that mimic or alter blood flow. This field is rich with challenging problems in fluid mechanics involving three-dimensional, pulsatile flows at the edge of turbulence.

Abstract: A three-dimensional serpentine microchannel design with a "C shaped" repeating unit is presented in this paper as a means of implementing chaotic advection to passively enhance fluid mixing. The device is fabricated in a silicon wafer using a double-sided KOH wet-etching technique to realize a three-dimensional channel geometry. Experiments using phenolphthalein and sodium hydroxide solutions demonstrate the ability of flow in this channel to mix faster and more uniformly than either pure molecular diffusion or flow in a "square-wave" channel for Reynolds numbers from 6 to 70. The mixing capability of the channel increases with increasing Reynolds number. At least 98% of the maximum intensity of reacted phenolphthalein is observed in the channel after five mixing segments for Reynolds numbers greater than 25. At a Reynolds number of 70, the serpentine channel produces 16 times more reacted phenolphthalein than a straight channel and 1.6 times more than the square-wave channel. Mixing rates in the serpentine channel at the higher Reynolds numbers are consistent with the occurrence of chaotic advection. Visualization of the interface formed in the channel between streams of water and ethyl alcohol indicates that the mixing is due to both diffusion and fluid stirring.

Abstract: Experiments on the vortex-shedding frequencies of various rectangular cylinders were conducted in a wind tunnel and in a water tank. The results show how Strouhal number varies with a width-to-height ratio of the cylinders in the range of Reynolds number between 70 and 2 × l04. There is found to exist a certain range of Reynolds number for the cylinders with the width-to-height ratios of 2 and 3 where flow pattern abruptly changes with a sudden discontinuity in Strouhal number. The changes in flow pattern corresponding to the discontinuity of Strouhal number have been confirmed by means of measurements of velocity distribution and flow visualization. These data are compared with those of other investigators. The experimental results have been found to show a good agreement with those of numerical calculations.