2012 Innovative ETD Award

Master of Mechanical Engineering

Pontifical Catholic University - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In her Master's thesis, Paula Farias employs a non-intrusive optical technique to provide time-resolved images of the lower portion of the liquid film of horizontal annular flow of air and water, revealing the interfacial wave behavior. The stereoscopic technique developed is an original contribution of the present work to the set of experimental techniques available for the study of two-phase flows. Time–resolved images of longitudinal and cross section views of the film were recorded and analyzed, what constitutes in valuable information for the understanding of the dynamics of the liquid film in horizontal annular flow. The work by Farias has made use of state-of-the-art equipment and image processing techniques to produce visualization movies of the dynamic characteristics of annular flow that have not been seen up to now. This is a significant contribution that opens new opportunities for studying complex flow fields. This multimedia thesis portfolio contains the thesis in PDF and provides supplementary high definition video clips.

In 2011 Paula received the ABCM Award for best thesis and in 2012 she published her work as a scientific paper in The Journal of Experiments in Fluids.

Thesis:

Acceptance Video: