Holographic interferometry for computational fluid dynamics model validation

Consistency analysis and data collaboration is a relatively new scientific area. It deals with quantifying how well scientific models approximate empirical reality. Consistency analysis is based on methodically comparing model predictions with experimental measurements, but this task is made more difficult by the fact that both models and experiments have their own inherent uncertainties. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models are numerical methods able to solve complicated discrete fluid dynamics problems. They are used thoroughly in mechanical, aerospace and energy science. As CFD models are being applied to more and more critical systems, there is a growing need to improve the reliability of CFD model predictions. This work addresses this need by presenting consistency analysis results for a simple CFD model and an experiment in which the concentration field of a buoyant helium plume had been studied by holographic interferometry. A detailed procedure is presented for carrying out data collaboration between simulation and experimental data. This work is novel in a sense that it is the first to present the specific difficulties of collaborating interferometric data. These difficulties arise from the encoded nature of information being present in interferometric fringe images.