Laser Doppler velocimetry

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Laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) , also known as laser Doppler anemometry (LDA),
is the technique of using the Doppler shift in a laser beam to measure the velocity in
transparent or semi-transparent fluid flows, or the linear or vibratory motion of opaque,
reflecting, surfaces.

LDA facility operating at Laboratory of Gas Technology (Poznan University of

Technology).

Contents

1 Technology origin
2 Operating principles
3 Applications
o 3.1 Flow Research
o 3.2 Medical Applications
4 References
5 External links

6 See also

[edit] Technology origin

With the development of the helium-neon laser (He-Ne) at the Bell Telephone
Laboratories in 1962, the optics community had available a source of continuous wave
electromagnetic radiation highly concentrated at a wavelength of 632.8 nanometers (nm),
in the red portion of the visible spectrum.[1] It was soon shown fluid flow measurement
could be made from the Doppler effect on a He-Ne beam scattered by very small
polystyrene spheres entrained in the fluid.[2]

At the Research Laboratories of Brown Engineering Company (later Teledyne Brown

Engineering), this phenomenon was used in developing the first laser Doppler flowmeter
using heterodyne signal processing.[3]
The instrument was soon called the Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) and the technique
Laser Doppler Velocimetry, also abbreviated LDV. Another application name is laser
Doppler anemometry (LDA). Early LDV applications ranged from measuring and
mapping the exhaust from rocket engines with speeds up to 1000 m/s to determining flow
in a near-surface blood artery. A variety of similar instruments were developed for solidsurface monitoring, with applications ranging from measuring product speeds in
production lines of paper and steel mills, to measuring vibration frequency and amplitude
of surfaces.[4]

[edit] Operating principles

In its simplest and most presently used form, LDV crosses two beams of collimated,
monochromatic, and coherentlaser light in the flow of the fluid being measured. The two
beams are usually obtained by splitting a single beam, thus ensuring coherence between
the two. Lasers with wavelengths in the visible spectrum (390-750 nm) are commonly
used; these are typically He-Ne, Argon ion, or laser diode), allowing the beam path to be
observed. A transmitting optics focuses the beams to intersect at their waists (the focal
point of a laser beam), where they interfere and generate a set of straight fringes. As
particles (either naturally occurring or induced) entrained in the fluid pass through the
fringes, they reflect light that is then collected by a receiving optics and focused on a
photodetector (typically an avalanche photodiode).
The reflected light fluctuates in intensity, the frequency of which is equivalent to the
Doppler shift between the incident and scattered light, and is thus proportional to the
component of particle velocity which lies in the plane of two laser beams. If the sensor is
aligned to the flow such that the fringes are perpendicular to the flow direction, the
electrical signal from the photodetector will then be proportional to the full particle
velocity. By combining three devices (e.g.; He-Ne, Argon ion, and laser diode) with
different wavelengths, all three flow velocity components can be simultaneously
measured.[5]
Another form of LDV, particularly used in early device developments, has a completely
different approach akin to an interferometer. The sensor also splits the laser beam into
two parts; one (the measurement beam) is focused into the flow and the second (the
reference beam) passes outside the flow. A receiving optics provides a path that intersects
the measurement beam, forming a small volume. Particles passing through this volume
will scatter light from the measurement beam with a Doppler shift; a portion of this light
is collected by the receiving optics and transferred to the photodetector. The reference
beam is also sent to the photodetector where optical heterodyne detection produces an
electrical signal proportional to the Doppler shift, by which the particle velocity
component perpendicular to the plane of the beams can be determined.[6]

Similar arrangements using optical heterodyning are also used in laser Doppler sensors
for measuring the linear velocity of solids and for measuring vibrations of surfaces; the
latter sensor is usually called a laser Doppler vibrometer, also abbreviated LDV.[7]

[edit] Applications
In the decades since the LDV was first introduced, there has been a wide variety of laser
Doppler sensors developed and applied.

[edit] Flow Research

Laser Doppler velocimetry is often chosen over other forms of flow measurement
because the equipment can be outside of the flow being measured and therefore has no
effect on the flow. Some typical applications include the following:

Wind tunnel velocity experiments for testing aerodynamics of aircraft, missiles,

cars, trucks, trains, and buildings and other structures
Velocity measurements in water flows (research in general hydrodynamics, ship
hull design, rotating machinery, pipe flows, channel flow, etc.).
Fuel injection and spray research where there is a need to measure velocities
inside engines or through nozzles
Environmental research (combustion research, wave dynamics, coastal
engineering, tidal modeling, river hydrology, etc.).[8]

One disadvantage has been that LDV sensors are range-dependent; they have to be
calibrated minutely and the distances where they measure has to precisely defined. This
distance restriction has recently been at least partially overcome with a new sensor that is
range independent.[9]

[edit] Medical Applications

Laser Doppler velocimetry is used in hemodynamics research as a technique to partially
quantify blood flowin human tissues such as skin. Within the clinical environment, the
technology is often referred to as laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF). The beam from a lowpower laser (usually a laser diode) penetrates the skin sufficiently to be scattered with a
Doppler shift by the red blood cells and return to be concentrated on a detector. These
measurements are useful to monitor the effect of exercise, drug treatments,
environmental, or physical manipulations on targeted micro-sized vascular areas.[10]
The laser Doppler vibrometer is being used in clinical otology for the measurement of
tympanic membrane (eardrum), malleus (hammer), and prosthesis head displacement in
response to sound inputs of 80- to 100-dB sound-pressure level. It also has potential use
in the operating room to perform measurements of prosthesis and stapes displacement.[11]

[edit] References

1. ^ White, A. D., and J. D. Rigden, "Continuous Gas Maser Operation in the

Visible". Proc IRE, vol. 50, p. 1697: July 1962, p. 1697. US Patent 3242439.
2. ^Yea, Y., and H. Z. Cummings; Localized Fluid Flow Measurements with an HeNe Laser Spectrometer, Appl. Phys. Letters, vol. 4, May 1964, pp. 176-178
3. ^Foreman, J. W., Jr., E. W. George, and R. D. Lewis; Measurement of Localized
Flow Velocities in Gases with a Laser Doppler Flowmeter, Appl. Phys. Letters.
vol. 7. Aug. 1965, pp. 77-78
4. ^Watson, R. C., Jr., R. D. Lewis, and H. J. Watson; Instruments for Motion
Measurement Using Laser Doppler Heterodyning Techniques, ISA Trans., vol. 8,
no. 1, 1969, pp. 20-28
5. ^ Drain, L. E.; The Laser Doppler Technique, John Wiley & Sons, 1980, ISBN
0471276278
6. ^ Durst, F, A. Melling, and J. H. Whitelaw; Principles and Practice of Laser
Doppler Anemometry, Academic Press, London, 1976, ISBN 0122252500
7. ^ Miller, Frederic O., Aghes F. Vandome, and John McBrewster; Laser Doppler
Vibrometer, VDM Pub. House, 2010, ISBN 6132512802
8. ^Dantec Dynamics, Laser Doppler Anemometry;
http://www.dantecdynamics.com/Default.aspx?ID=653
9. ^Moir, Christopher I: "Miniature laser doppler velocimetry systems," SPIE
Conference Proceedings, Optical Systems, 2009, vol. 7356
10. ^Stern, Michael D.; "Laser Doppler velocimetry in blood and multiply scattering
fluids: theory," Appl. Opt., vol. 24, no. 13, (1985), pp. 1968-1986
11. ^Goode, Richard L.; Geoffrey Ball, Shinsei Nishihara, and Koshiro Nakamura;
Laser Doppler Vibrometer, American J. Otology. vol. 17, no. 6, (1996), pp. 813822

[edit] External links

LDA/LDV principle
LDV overview

[edit] See also

Particle tracking velocimetry

Particle image velocimetry
Hot-wire anemometry
Molecular tagging velocimetry
Photon Doppler velocimetry
Laser surface velocimeter

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