Oscillating grids turbulence generator for turbulent transport studies

An oscillating grids turbulence generator was constructed for studies of two new effects associated with turbulent transport of particles, turbulent thermal diffusion and clustering instability. These effects result in formation of large-scale and small-scale inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution of particles. The advantage of this experimental set-up is the feasibility to study turbulent transport in mixtures with controllable composition and unlimited observation time. For flow measurements we used Particle Image Velocimetry with the adaptive multi-pass algorithm to determine a turbulent velocity field and its statistical characteristics. Instantaneous velocity vector maps, flow streamlines and probability density function of velocity field demonstrate properties of turbulence generated in the device.