Validation of Confocal Micro-PIV Technique by Poiseuille Flow Measurement

This paper presents a micro-PIV measurement technique using confocal microscopy, "confocal micro-PIV", and its application to Poiseuille flow. We have evaluated the performance and measurement accuracy of the confocal micro-PIV system through the simple Poiseuille flow measurement. Using the confocal micro-PIV system, we can measure the velocity field in the region of 240times180 mum with the depth-of-field of 1.88 mum The steady pressure-driven flow in a capillary with the diameter of 100 mum was measured using the confocal micro-PIV technique. The measurement results were compared with the theoretical solution of the Poiseuille flow in order to validate the measurement accuracy. The most dominant factor of measurement uncertainty is the effect of the Brownian motion of tracer particles. The effect of Brownian motion can be eliminated successfully by means of ensemble averaging method. The confocal micro-PIV is an accurate and useful method for the measurement of steady microscale flow