Determination of free surface flow characteristics of free falling fluid over an inclined plate by opto-coupler arrangement

This paper has described an optical method of determining the surface flow characteristics of a free flowing fluid which would estimate accurately parameters involved such as fluid thickness and velocity in the inception regime and the amplitude, frequency, wavelength and velocity in the sine wave regime. The proposed experimental set up facilitates testing the free flow characteristics of any type of fluid of varied density, viscosity and surface tension. The second measurement embodied in the same experimental set up is the dynamic fluid pressure measurement at the transition region from the sine wave regime to the three dimensional regime. The sensitivity offered by this transducer has shown to be much more greater than the conventional dynamic pressure transducers.