On the validation of magnetic resonance velocimetry in single-phase turbulent pipe flows

A nuclear magnetic resonance imaging technique is used to measure velocity distributions in turbulent pipe flows up to Re = 24580. While turbulent intensity is usually determined from signal attenuation, we deduce turbulent intensity from velocity distribution with no need to suppose a Gaussian distribution for velocity fluctuations. Skewness and flatness measurements are also presented in this paper. Comparison with DNS show good agreement and we show that NMR data is sufficiently accurate to provide turbulent viscosity profile. The low field system used in this study allow the suppression of susceptibility artifacts and thus open its use for studying two-phase flows. We postulate that the method used here could be applied to two-phase flows and would thus provide valuable information on turbulent viscosity models. (authors)