Direct measurement of vorticity using tracer particles with internal markers

Current experiment techniques for vorticity measurement suffer from limited spatial and temporal resolution to resolve the small-scale eddy dynamics in turbulence. In this study, we develop a new method for direct vorticity measurement in fluid flows based on digital inline holography (DIH). The DIH system utilizes a collimated laser beam to illuminate the tracers with internal markers and a digital sensor to record the generated holograms. The tracers made of the polydimethylsiloxane prepolymer mixed with internal markers are fabricated using a standard microfluidic droplet generator. A rotation measurement algorithm is developed based on the 3D location reconstruction and tracking of the internal markers and is assessed through synthetic holograms to identify the optimal parameter settings and measurement range (e.g., rotation rate from 0.3 to 0.7 rad/frame under numerical aperture of imaging of 0.25). Our proposed method based on DIH is evaluated by a calibration experiment of single tracer rotation, which yields the same optimal measurement range. Using von Kármán swirling flow setup, we further demonstrate the capability of the approach to simultaneously measure the Lagrangian rotation and translation of multiple tracers. Our method can measure vorticity in a small region on the order of 100 µm or less and can be potentially used to quantify the Kolmogorov-scale vorticity field in turbulent flows.Graphical abstract