Abstract: As a measurement technique of instantaneous 2-D velocity flow field, particle image velocimetry(PIV) has received much attention in detailed flow field measurement, but mature product of PIV is still expensive. In view of this, we introduce a simple device which consists of high-speed digital camera, laser transmitter, cylindrical lens and tracer particle. The fuctions of business PIV product can be achieved with low cost. To verify the simple PIV performance in this paper, we designed a simple device and analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of this simple device by software Fluent. Furthermore, we optimized the particle size and the tracking performance of particle. Results show that corn flour particle is suitable as the tracer particle of this simple device. Moreover, we should choose the frame rate of high-speed digital camera according to the maximum inlet water velocity which the tracking performance of tracer particle can reach. During this process, we can get a better flow field measurement, and develope and optimize the PIV technique. The analysis result offers important reference for further study.

Key words: particle image velocimetry technology, tracer particle, following performance, development and optimization, Software Fluent