Sheet Light Spray Pattern Flow Visualization

This is a pseudo color image of the spray pattern generated by a pressure swirl nozzle. The different colors represent different concentrations of spray. The color bar along the bottom of the image shows the concentration of spray increasing from light blue to green. The setup used to take the picture is shown below.

The fluid was dyed with fluorescent dye and illuminated with a sheet of light from an Argon laser. The video camera lens was fitted with a filter which allowed only the fluorescent light to get through. The brightness of the fluorescent light was therefore proportional to the quantity of spray in a particular part of the image. The resulting image was captured into a computer and processed. The images were corrected for the variations in illumination by dividing them by a background image. The images were also scaled by a linear transformation so that the brightest and darkest pixels were thrown out. This work is based on research done by T. Igushi, V.G. Mcdonnell and G.S. Samuelson at the University of California at Irvine. A video ( 766 KB) of a trigger sprayer is also available.