Impact of porous-media topology on turbulent fluid flow: Highly resolved space and time interactions

This project focuses on understanding how different porous structure topologies will influence turbulent fluid flow interactions. Different types of porous media will be considered with pore sizes ranging from the millimetre to the sub-micron range. This includes composite and uniform packed beds to sintered materials and open-cell foam structures. Turbulent fluid flow interactions will be investigated experimentally by performing measurements of the velocity and temperature fields in the viscous boundary layer, generated at the interface between free flow and the porous structure. 

The main goal is to enable measurements at different scales with a high spatial and temporal resolution, which will provide a better understanding of the turbulence pumping mechanism, together with valuable data for the model closure of the interfacial turbulent flow. The outcome will be a comprehensive database of the velocity and temperature fields in the free-flow and in the porous region. PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) and PIT (Particle Image Thermometry) are the most suitable techniques to reach the required level of resolution and accuracy. The challenge here is the adaptation of the PIV/PIT techniques to the investigation of free stream/porous media interactions. In particular, the requirement of high spatial and temporal resolution implies to perform a detailed study of the seeding type, particle generation, image filtering, surface coating, temperature calibration and post-processing methods. Most of these aspects are still unexplored with respect to the study of turbulent flow interactions.