Ultrasonic Doppler Method for velocity profile measurement in Fluid Dynamics and Fluid Engineering

An Ultrasound Doppler Velocity Profile method (UVP method) has been developed for fluid mechanical measurements in physics and engineering. The principle of the method is straightforward; echography and Doppler effect. This method was originally developed in medical engineering to measure blood flow. However, due to various constraints arising from its direct application to the human body, the measurement method never realized its full potentiaL We subsequently extended this method to non-medical flow measurements and developed specific application systems. Although the initial motivation was to find a new flow measurement method for liquid metal flows, the method itself was found to be quite useful to flow measurements in general and additionally through years of use has gradually become accepted as a tool to study the physics and engineering of fluid flow. In the sections to follow we \vill describe the measurement method and review the applications to date.