In the past years, volumetric velocimetry measurements with helium-filled soap bubbles as tracer particles have been introduced in wind tunnel experiments and performed at large-scale, enabling the study of complex body aerodynamics. A limiting factor is identified in the field of wind engineering, where the flow around ships is frequently investigated. Considering multiple wind directions, the optical access for illumination and 3D imaging rapidly erodes the measurement regions due to shadows and incomplete triangulation. This work formalizes the concepts of volumetric losses and camera redundancy, and examines the performance of multi-directional illumination and imaging for monolithic and partitioned modes. The work is corroborated by experiments around a representative ship model. The study shows that a redundant system of cameras yields the largest measurement volume when partitioned into subsystems. The 3D measurements employing two illumination directions and seven cameras, yield the time-averaged velocity field around the ship. Regions of flow separation and recirculation are revealed, as well as sets of counter-rotating vortices in several stations from the ship bow to the flight–deck. The unsteady regime at the flight–deck is examined by proper orthogonal decomposition, indicating that the technique is suited for the analysis of large-scale unsteady flow features.@en

A statistical tool called design of experiments (DOEs) is introduced for uncertainty quantification in particle image velocimetry (PIV). DOE allows to quantify the total uncertainty as well as the systematic uncertainties arising from various experimental factors. The approach is based on measuring a quantity (e.g. time-averaged velocity or Reynolds stresses) several times by varying the levels of the experimental factors which are known to affect the value of the measured quantity. Then, using Analysis of Variances, the total variance in the measured quantity is computed and hence the total uncertainty. Moreover, the analysis provides the individual variances for each of the experimental factors, leading to the estimation of the systematic uncertainties from each factor and their contributions to the total uncertainty. The methodology is assessed for planar PIV measurements of the flow over a NACA0012 airfoil at 15 degrees angle of attack considering five experimental factors, namely camera aperture, inter-frame time separation, interrogation window size, laser sheet thickness and seeding density. Additionally, the methodology is applied to the investigation by stereoscopic PIV of the flow at the outlet of a ducted Boundary Layer Ingesting propulsor. The total uncertainty in the time-averaged velocity as well as the constituent systematic uncertainties due to the experimental factors, namely camera aperture, inter-frame time separation, interrogation window size and stereoscopic camera angle, are quantified.@en