Uncertainty analysis of three-dimensional three-component (3C3D) microflow imaging and velocity measurement system using Monte-Carlo simulation

An investigation to determine the measurement uncertainty of a three-component three dimensional (3C3D) velocity measurement technique has been performed through a Monte-Carlo simulation. The concept of the technique is velocity vector field calculation based on 3D cross correlation of the intensity volumes of positions of particles with a known time interval. Each volume is generated by scanning through depth of a micro-channel with a thin focal plane, capturing images, and stacking them together to build an intensity volume of particles´ position, then applying an extended 3D cross correlation algorithm, followed by a developed 3D elliptical Gaussian peak detection algorithm to calculate the flow field. The optimum particle diameter and seeding density in the synthetic images of the flow field with and without background noise has been investigated.