Several error sources are analyzed for 2-component PIV, including: calibration, magnification variation, perspective, resolution, and the correlation algorithm noise floor. Several of these error sources are compared with previously published estimates. New experimental data and methods for measuring the contribution of each source to velocity uncertainty are presented.
The calibration uncertainty on the velocity measurement was found to be small (so long as reasonable care is taken in the calibration) and independent of the calibration target for a 2-component PIV setup. The perspective error and magnification variation were both calculated and experimentally found to be small. The light sheet thickness only has an effect when the thickness is greater than 1% of the distance from the light sheet to the camera lens plane. The spatial resolution may be so coarse as to not capture the smaller eddies in the flow, thus attenuating the measured fluctuations. The noise floor was found to contribute significantly to the uncertainty in the velocity measurements in sub-pixel displacement.
