Intelligent Lagrangian interpolation algorithm for PIV data

A new Lagrangian based interpolation scheme is proposed for recovering velocity field data from within masked regions in particle image velocimetry (PIV) experiments. The proposed method estimates velocity field data within the masked region using a weighted average of past and future snapshot data along a streamline from outside of the masked region. The estimation invokes satisfying the steady-state diffusion equation for the velocity field. This Lagrangian interpolation scheme is compared to linear interpolation using a CFD test case and the results indicate a 3-5 times improvement in the relative reconstruction error.