Development of Experimental Procedures for Measuring Three-Dimensional Temperature Fields in Technical Flows Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Sven Grundmann; Professor Dr. Jürgen Hennig, since 1/2014
• Subject Area: Fluid Mechanics ; Medical Physics, Biomedical Technology
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 235233928

In addition to measuring velocity vector fields measuring temperature fields gives key information of main importance for numerous research fields in engineering sciences. Of great interest is the convective transport of heat inside a fluid as well as the quantitative measurement of the heat flux on interfaces of fluid and solid.The main goal of the proposed project is to quantitatively measure three-dimensional temperature distributions in a fluid in addition to the three-dimensional velocity distribution using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The experimental procedures for measuring temperatures in stationary flows will be developed at the University Hospital Freiburg. The applied methods are based on changes of the proton resonance frequency as well as T1 relaxation time, providing basically relative temperature differences. Simultaneously suitable model configurations will be developed at the Technische Universität Darmstadt according to a reasonable balance of fluid velocity and realizable heating and cooling power. Experiments for validating the results using conventional temperature measurement techniques will also be conducted. The data measured with the whole system inside the MRI machine will be post processed and analyzed on the basis of the three-dimensional velocity and temperature fields.The measurement procedures to be developed allow the development and validation of complex and highly integrated components for heat-transfer applications according to the fast technical progress in the field of modern 3D manufacturing methods. Such components are compact heat exchangers, high-speed cutting tools, cooling systems of combustion engines and gas turbines, to name only a few.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Bernd André Jung, until 12/2013