Enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio of pressure sensitive paint data by singular value decomposition

Abstract

When using pressure sensitive paint under unsteady conditions in low-speed applications, the signal-to-noise ratio is usually low and may hinder the proper evaluation of the acquired data. Here, we propose a new noise-filtering scheme that is based on singular value decomposition. As a test case, we evaluate the fluctuating pressure field due to unsteady vortex shedding on the side of a square cylinder. The proposed scheme resulted in a reduction of pixel noise of the order of two magnitudes which made it possible to obtain results regarding the spatial form of flow structures as well as the shedding frequency.