Abstract
In this paper we report the method of visualizing and measuring the fluid flow within a small droplet of millimeter size. We use a vertical laser sheet in visualization of the micrometer size and special attention is given to the arrangement of microscope to obtain clear images. Then we use a PIV technique to measure the velocity of the internal flow from the images taken. Since the droplet is of spherical shape, the images represent highly deteriorated picture of the real objects due to the refraction phenomenon. In order to compensate the refraction, we in this study developed two kinds of methods for the real velocity. In the first method, the refracted images are directly used to obtain the velocity in the image space, and then the velocity is transformed to the real space. In the second method the images are first transformed to the real-space objects, and then the PIV is used to measure the velocity field. We compared the two results to prove the usefulness of the compensation technique.
