Evaluation of recursive PIV algorithm with correlation based correction method using various flow images

The hierarchical recursive local-correlation PIV algorithm with CBC (correlation based correction) method was employed to increase the spatial resolution of PIV results and to reduce error vectors. The performance of this new PIV algorithm was tested using synthetic images, PIV standard images of Visualization Society of Japan, real flows including ventilation flow inside a vehicle passenger compartment and wake behind a circular cylinder with riblet surface. As a result, most spurious vectors were suppressed by employing the CBC method, the hierarchical recursive correlation algorithm improved the sub-pixel accuracy of PIV results by decreasing the interrogation window size and increased spatial resolution significantly. However, with recursively decreasing of interrogation window size, the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) in the correlation plane was decreased and number of spurious vectors was increased. Therefore, compromised determination of optimal interrogation window size is required for given flow images, the performance of recursive algorithm is also discussed from a viewpoint of recovery ratio and error ratio in the paper.