Application of the PIV measurement technique at DLR

In many applications standard PIV (2C-2D) has proved to be a mature tool for the measurement of instantaneous velocity fields in aerodynamics. In the past two years stereoscopic PIV (3C-2D) has also been successfully employed at the investigation of wake vortices behind aircraft or helicopter rotor models, even in large wind tunnels. More advanced and more complex PIV systems can be developed by proper combination of existing equipment for illumination and recording. This allows to further expand the observation field, and - even more interesting from the scientific point of view - to measure acceleration of the flow field or to determine the statistics of turbulent flow fields. The state-of-the-art of such advanced PIV systems will be presented together with typical results from three different applications