Performances of feature tracking in turbulent boundary layer investigation

In this paper, we describe the application of a feature tracking (FT) algorithm for the measurement of velocity statistics in a turbulent boundary layer over a flat plate at Re-theta similar or equal to 3,700. The feature tracking algorithm is based on an optical flow approach. Displacements are obtained by searching the parameters of the mapping between interrogation windows in the first and second image which minimize a correlation distance between them. The correlation distance is here defined as the minimum of the sum of squared differences of interrogation windows intensities. The linearized equation which governs the minimization problem is solved with an iterative procedure only where the solution is guaranteed to exist, thus maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio. In this process, the interrogation window first undergoes a pure translation, and then a complete affine deformation. Final mapping parameters provide the velocity and velocity gradients values in a lagrangian framework. The interpolation inherent to window-deforming algorithms represents a critical factor for the overall accuracy and particular attention must be devoted to this step. In this paper different schemes are tested, and their effects on algorithm accuracy are first discussed by looking at the distribution of systematic and random errors computed from synthetic images. The same analysis is then performed on the turbulent boundary layer data, where the effects associated with the use of a near-wall logical mask are also investigated. The comparison with single-point data gathered from the literature demonstrate the overall ability of the FT technique to correctly extract all relevant statistical quantities, including the spanwise vorticity distribution. Concerning the mean velocity profile, no evident influence of the interpolation scheme appears, while the near-wall accuracy is improved by the application of the logical mask. On the contrary, for the fluctuating components of the velocity, the interpolation based on B-Spline basis functions is found to perform better compared to the classical Bicubic scheme, particularly in the highly sheared region close to the wall.