Feasibility study of using various instruments for measurement of air motion in a test room

A stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) system was used to measure airflow characteristics in an irregularly shaped test room. These measurements were compared with air velocity measurements obtained by a sonic anemometer instrument, hot-wire instrument, and draft instrument. All of the measurements were taken at five measurement locations along the center plane of the test room. For each measuement location, numerous pairs of SPIV, sonic, hot-wire, and draft data were collected and averaged to determine the average velocity. The normalized turbulence intensity was calculated from the SPIV data. The equipment description, measurement procedures, and velocity are presented in this paper. A comparison was made for the average velocities from each of the four types of measurement equipment. This comparison established the benefit of using a noncontact measurement system such as the SPIV system.