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arXiv · 2508.02147

Educational experiments with Particle Image Velocimetry in a small Prandtl water tunnel

William Thielicke·Steffen Risius
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Abstract

A small water tunnel was designed as a table top experiment to visualize and measure basic fluid dynamic phenomena. The visualization of the flow by a laser light sheet and the measurement with Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) proves to be very instructive for teaching high school and university students. Three basic fluid dynamic experiments are reported: the determination of the vortex shedding frequency of a cylinder (von-Karman vortex street), the measurement of circulation around a flat plate and the lift coefficient of a NACA profile. All three experiments show good agreement with theoretical expectations.

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William Thielicke, Steffen Risius. 2025-08-04. Educational experiments with Particle Image Velocimetry in a small Prandtl water tunnel. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.02147

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