Acquisition of a High Speed Video Camera System with Microscopic Capabilities for Undergraduate Research and Teaching at the University of St. Thomas

University Of St. Thomas, Saint Paul MN

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests funds for the purchase of a high-speed imaging system to be housed in the School of Engineering at the University of St. Thomas (UST) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The system will consist of a Photron Fastcam capable of recording at 675,000 frames per second, associated micro-objective lenses for viewing phenomena on the microscale, laser and high-intensity LED lighting sources, precision manual positioning stages, and computing resources to drive the system and conduct image processing. The School of Engineering will be financially responsible for its maintenance and operation. High-speed imaging of complex fluid flow is leading to a deeper understanding of the fundamentals in a diverse array of fields such as micro-particle formation and atomization cooling. Dr.?s Wentz and Shepard have been involved with the design and development of similar instrumentation and advanced analysis techniques in their previous work at the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota. Dr. Shepard?s fundamental research on air injection into a liquid cross-flow has shown that wall shear stress is more strongly correlated to bubble diameter than bulk liquid velocity when generating micro-bubbles which find application in drag reduction, heat transfer enhancement and sprays.