Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

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Flow Measurement and Instrumentation

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/flowmeasinst

Analysis of the turbulence in the suction chamber of an external gear pump using
Time Resolved Particle Image Velocimetry
R. Castilla a, , J. Wojciechowski b , P.J. Gamez-Montero a , A. Vernet c , E. Codina a
a

LABSON - Department of Fluid Mechanics, Technical University of Catalonia, ES-08222 Terrassa, Spain

Institute of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics, Technical University of Warsaw, Nowowiejska 24, PL- 00-665 Warsaw, Poland

ECOMMFIT, Department of Mech. Eng., Rovira i Virgili University, Avinguda dels Paisos Catalans, 26 Campus Sescelades ES-43007 Tarragona Catalonia, Spain

article

info

Article history:
Received 22 November 2007
Received in revised form
21 May 2008
Accepted 20 June 2008
Keywords:
Time Resolved Particle Image Velocimetry
External gear pump
Two-dimensional turbulence
Autocorrelation function
Integral timescale

a b s t r a c t
The use of air bubbles for the analysis of the turbulence in the suction chamber of a gear pump with
Time Resolved Particle Image Velocimetry (TRPIV) is considered. It is the first time, as far as the authors
know, that the flow inside a gear pump is observed with a non-intrusive technique. Although there are
drawbacks of using air bubbles as flow tracers, it is the only option available in this case, since solid
particles and water drops could drastically damage the steel-made gears. It is shown that if the bubbles
are small enough (around 100 m), the buoyancy is not a significant problem for the typical velocities
involved in the experiments. On the other hand, if the number of particles per interrogation area is
between 10 and 20, as is normally suggested in the literature, the modification of the speed of sound and,
hence, the danger of having a compressible flow, is also negligible. Using air bubbles as tracers for the
TRPIV, the turbulence for three experiments, at different diameter-based Reynolds numbers, is analysed.
The time series of the velocity at different distances to the gearing zone of the gear pump are considered,
as well as the wavenumber distribution of the density of energy, calculated from the vorticity field. The
results show that for high enough Reynolds number the integral timescale of the turbulence, obtained
from the autocorrelation function, is approximately the same as the gearing period. Also, the spectral
distribution in frequency show an energy transport to large scale, as well as the spectral distribution in
wavenumber. This latter shows also an stepper range related to the enstrophy cascade towards the small
scales. That suggests the two-dimensionality of the turbulence created in the suction chamber.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
A gear pump uses the meshing of gears to pump fluid by
displacement. In a gear pump, this displacement is fixed, which
means that it pumps a constant amount of fluid per revolution.
There are two main types: external gear pumps which use two
external spur gears and internal gear pumps which use an external
and an internal spur gear. The present work is focused on the
performance of the external gear pumps.
As the gears rotate, they separate on the intake side of the pump,
creating a void and suction which is filled by oil. The fluid is carried
by the gears to the discharge side of the pump, where the meshing
of the gears displaces the fluid (see Fig. 1). The compact and simple
design of the gears and housing allows the pumping of the oil at
very high pressure, usually up to 300 bars.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 937398657; fax: +34 937398633.

E-mail addresses: castilla@mf.upc.edu (R. Castilla), jan@meil.pw.edu.pl
(J. Wojciechowski), pjgm@mf.upc.edu (P.J. Gamez-Montero),
anton.vernet@urv.net (A. Vernet), ecodina@mf.upc.edu (E. Codina).
0955-5986/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.flowmeasinst.2008.06.005

The volumetric capacity Cv is the volume of fluid that the

pump can impel for a full rotation of the gears. It is determined
by geometric characteristics, provided that there are no leakage.
The mean flow rate in cm3 /s of the pump is the product of the
volumetric capacity and the rotational velocity
Q =

Cv
2

(1)

if Cv is expressed in cm3 /rev and in rad/s.

Hydraulic performance of rotary gear pump depends mainly
on the following factors: design of inlet and discharge openings,
side and tip clearance and, also, gear shapes and tooth profiles.
Actually, the real flow is lower than the theoretical mean flow rate
Q because of leakage through lateral gaps between gear surface
and compensating plates, and radial gaps between the teeth head
and the pump body. Moreover, leakage also occurs due to oil
trapping in the meshing portion of gear pump of involute type.
Recently there is a tendency to increase the specific power,
defined as the relation power/weight, by reducing the size of the
pump and by increasing the pressure as well as the rotational
velocity. With the current design of the suction and impulsion

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R. Castilla et al. / Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

Fig. 1. Scheme of an external gear pump. One of the wheels are driven by the other.
The fluid is transported from the suction chamber to the impulsion one. In this case,
from left to right.

chambers, due to simplicity of manufacturing, the volumetric

efficiency of the pump decreases when the rotational velocity is
increased [14]. An appropriate design of the suction chamber,
supported by a complete knowledge of the fluid dynamics, both
by experimentation and by CFD, could allow modification of the
design in order to maintain, and even to enhance, the performance
of the pump.
The present work focuses on experimental investigation of the
turbulence within the external gear pump using Time Resolved
Particle Image Velocimetry (hereafter TRPIV) with air bubbles as
tracers. This contribution is the first time that a non-intrusive
technique is used to observe the flow inside a gear pump. Within
this context, the objective of this manuscript is to characterise,
both in space and time, the turbulent flow inside the suction
chamber.
Although Digital Particle Image Velocimetry (DPIV) has been
significantly developed in the last decades [5], it is the first time
that it is used to analyse the flow in a positive displacement
pump. The use of a high velocity digital camera makes possible the
performance of experiments with TRPIV. On the other hand, the
use of air bubbles has been normally avoided for PIV experiments,
principally because of the problem of buoyancy. Nevertheless, for
gear pumps, this is the only option, since solid particles and water
drops could seriously damage the material. On the other hand,
also the modification of the velocity of sound in a two-phase
flow [6] can be argued as drawback of using air bubbles. In the
present work it is shown that, if the size of the bubbles is small
enough and the number of these per interrogation area is such
normally suggested [7], both the buoyancy of the tracers and the
compressibility of the flow are not important. Three experiments,
at different diameter-based Reynolds number, are analysed using
air bubbles as tracers, with focus on the time series in the central
line of the flow. The spectra and autocorrelation are analysed in
test points at different distances to the gears. The results obtained
clearly show a transfer of energy from the gearing frequency to the
smaller ones. This transfer is more important near the gearing zone
and for high Reynolds number.
2. Experimental procedure and results
2.1. Experimental setup
The pump analysed is the model 1PLA44, by Pedro Roquet. Each
cogwheel has a diameter of 54 mm and a height of 36 mm. The
number of teeth in each wheel is Z = 11 and the volumetric
capacity of this model is Cv = 44 cm3 /rev. The test pump case has
been completely made in methacrylate in order to film the flow in
the interior.
The test bench is composed by two hydraulic circuits. A simple
drawing is shown in the Fig. 2. The upper circuit is the primary
or driven one, with the methacrylate pump. This test pump takes

Fig. 2. Schematic drawing of the test bench. The two hydraulic circuits are shown,
as well as the laser sheet, the high velocity digital video camera and the computer
for processing the images. The methacrylate test pump is displayed as a white box.

the oil from the tank and impulses it through a pressure fall of
typically 510 bars back to the tank again. This pump is driven by
an oleohydraulic motor, which is a component of the secondary, or
driver, circuit (under the table in Fig. 2). This motor is in turn driven
by an hydraulic power-pack. This scheme allows easy modification
of the rotational velocity of the test pump acting on the flow rate of
the driver circuit, but has the disadvantage that it is not possible to
select a certain velocity with precision and, furthermore, it is rather
unstable.
The high velocity digital camera used in the experiments was
a Photron Ultima APX-RS with 17.5 m square pixels in a 1024
1024 pixel sensor. This camera can record up to 3000 frames per
second at full resolution and 250 000 fps at limited resolution, and
has a buffer memory of 2 GB. We have made tests at full resolution
at 500 fps and 1000 fps, since it was the limit admissible frequency
of the laser used. This was a pulsed green laser (526.5 nm) with 1 mJ
of energy per pulse externally synchronised. The camera was used
as master time-base, but its behavior was rather unstable. Some
similar problems with the output syncronisation signal with this
camera have been also reported by Wernet [8]. As noted by Wernet,
it is advisable the use of an external pulse generator.
The collected images have been processed with the open source
software gpiv [9]. The images were obtained with maximum
resolution, i.e. 1024 1024 pixels at 500 Hz and 1000 Hz with
an 105 mm objective. The buffer memory of the camera allows
recording up to 2048 images per experiment, with a duration of
slightly more than 4 and 2 s, respectively.
2.2. Flow seeding
Most PIV experiments reported in the literature use small solid
particles for flow seeding. However, in this case, the use of solid
material is ill-considered, since the metal-metal contact between
the teeth can produce material erosion and, eventually, damage the
transparent surface of methacrylate. The use of water drops has
been also discarded, since it can produce oxidation of the steelmade gears. It has been decided to use air bubbles, in spite of some
disadvantages: (a) the size of the bubble is not easily controllable,
(b) the density ratio is very large ( 600), (c) the presence of gas
in a liquid can reduce the velocity of sound and, hence, can make
the flow becoming compressible at relatively low velocity [6]. The
first item refers not only to the setting of the bubbles size, but also
to the uniformity of this size in one experiment. As pointed out by
Raffel et al. [7], a large variability in the size of the particles can

R. Castilla et al. / Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

379

make difficult the estimation of the velocity lag. But, in the present
case, it is not an important factor, since the air bubbles have a very
low inertia.
The second issue could be important because of buoyancy
effects in the particles, which can make the bubble to leave the
laser light sheet before it reaches the end of the test section. But,
as it is shown below, it actually has a secondary significance.
From the Stokes law the drag force over the bubble of diameter
Db is
FD = 3 Db vz

(2)

where is the viscosity of the fluid and vz is the vertical velocity.

Assuming that when the bubble enters the test section it is already
in stationary regime for vertical motion, and neglecting the weight,
we find that the vertical velocity is

vz =

1 D2b g l

18

(3)

where g is the acceleration of the gravity and l is the density of

the fluid.
Now consider that the flow has an horizontal mean velocity
hvy i, and the length of the test section is L. Then, when the particle
reaches the end of the test section, it has deviated its trajectory an
amount
H = vz

hvy i

(4)

Using (3) we get the ratio of vertical deviation and horizontal

length of test section,
H
L

1 D2b g l
18 hvy i

(5)

The laser sheet used in the experiments is 1 mm thick, and

the test section has a length of 35 mm, so then, in order to keep
the bubbles in the laser sheet, it is needed that H /L 0.025. In
Fig. 3 the ratio of the vertical deviation and the horizontal length
of the test section is plotted against mean velocity for various
bubble diameters for the characteristics of the mineral oil used
(l = 885 kg/m3 and = 0.028 Pas). The mean velocity of the
flow is function of the rotational speed of the pump. For 300 rpm,
we obtain a mean velocity in the suction chamber about 0.2 m/s.
For this case, the limit size of the bubble is 0.5 mm. With this test
bench it has been obtained a rotational speed up to 800 rpm. At this
velocity, even 1 mm diameter bubbles could be useful. But, in any
case, it is essential to avoid bubbles larger than 0.3 mm if a large
enough range of rotational speed is wanted. If the diameter of the
bubbles is 0.1 mm, it is possible to go down to 25 rpm.
Finally, note that, from (3), the Reynolds number for the vertical
velocity is
Rez =

1 D3b l2 g
18

(6)

which gives a maximum value of 0.5 for Db = 1 mm. It is then

grounded the use of the Stokes law for this analysis.
The optimum size of Db = 0.1 mm is also supported by the
analysis of Bolinder [10], which encountered that the ideal size of
the particle is slightly larger than 2 pixels with an interrogation
area 32 32. Less size gives rise to peak-locking [7,11], and larger
size to random errors. In the experiments presented in this work,
with a magnification factor about 0.065 mm/px, it corresponds
with a typical size of 0.15 mm already found.
In order to generate bubbles of this size, the Tates Law gives an
estimation of the diameter of the necessary hole. Considering that

Fig. 3. Ratio of vertical deviation and test section length in function of mean
horizontal velocity for several bubble diameter. The limit value for this case, H /L
0.025, is indicated as an straight horizontal line.

the bubbles are formed only by the action of the buoyancy force,
the relation
d0 =

D3b l g

(7)

is obtained [12,13]. For the mineral oil used, the superficial tension
is = 28.9 N/m. That gives, for Db 0.15 mm, a hole of diameter
d0 0.17 m. It is difficult to obtain a capillar of this diameter and,
also, it should be needed a large quantity of them. Microporous
ceramics with some tenth of microns large pores, normally used
for filtering the water in aquaria, are currently being tested with
compressed air.
Finally, we consider the effect of gas-liquid mixture on the sonic
speed of the flow. According to Brennen [6], a sufficiently high
volume fraction of air could reduce the sonic speed down to 20
m/s. For low values of the pressure and considering that the gas
maintains its temperature constant, the expression for the sonic
speed c is

s
c=

l (1 ) + g


,

(8)

where is the volume fraction of air, p is the pressure and l

and g are the density of the liquid and the gas, respectively. This
expression can be simplified as
c=

,

(9)

if l  g . If in a interrogation area of size N N there are nb

bubbles of diameter Db , the laser sheet is e millimeter thick and
the magnification factor is M mm/pixel, then
1

4M 2 D3b nb
3N 2 e

(10)

In Fig. 4 the relation of c is plotted as a function of nb for typical

values in the experiments, M = 0.065 mm/px, e = 1 mm, Db =
0.1 mm. As shown in this plot, when a usual density of particles is
used (it is normally suggested around 15 particle per interrogation
area [7]), the speed of sound can be so low as 40 m/s for the case
N = 16. Considering that this size of interrogation area is used for
low velocities, it can be concluded that the flows are reasonably far
from being compressible. Even in the worst case, c 20 m/s, the
rotational speed of the pump should be around 1000 rpm, which
is greater than the rotational speed threshold of the experiment of
800 rpm, in order to have a Mach number of the order of 0.3.

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R. Castilla et al. / Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

Fig. 4. Velocity of sound in the two-phase flow in function of number of bubbles

of diameter Db = 0.1 mm for different sizes of I.A.

Fig. 5. Sample photogram. The interrogation domain is marked with a white

rectangle as well as the test points used for measurement of spectra and temporal
autocorrelations.

In summary, the use of air bubbles, which is the only option for
these experiments, has been grounded. It has been argued that if
the size of the bubbles is smaller than 0.3 mm and the quantity does
not exceed the number of 15 to 20 bubbles per interrogation area,
the effects of buoyancy and compressibility are not important.
2.3. Experimental results
Results for three experiments, at different rotational velocity
and, hence, different diameter-based Reynolds number, ReD , are
presented here. This Reynolds number is defined as

D2
ReD =
.

(11)

The main characteristics of the experiments are summarised in

the Table 1. The size of the interrogation areas are such that the
displacement of the tracers is below one quarter of it, in order to
optimize its estimation [7].
In Fig. 6 the vector velocities, streamlines and vorticity are
shown for five instants in a gearing cycle. The direction of the flow
changes in function of which gearwheel is opening the volume and
suctioning the fluid. In the first picture the gears are opening in the
right side and, consequently, the flow is driven to this direction. In
the third picture the open side is left, and in the last one the flow
is again steered towards the right. Also, two opposite vortex are

clearly seen in the two upper corners. For space saving, it is only
shown here the sequence for ReD = 2400 (experiment 2).
In Fig. 7 the profiles of the streamwise component of the
velocity are plotted for different distances for experiment 1 (Re
= 520). These are mean profiles for all the temporal series, and
they are normalised with the reference velocity D (see Table 1).
If we consider the total y mean velocity (i.e. spatial as well as
temporal mean) hvy it , from the definition (1) and with the cross
section of the chamber, it is easy to theoretically calculate its
normalised value, hvy it /D = 0.123. The experimental results
are exposed in Table 1. For experiments 1 and 3 the mean value
measured is slightly lower, about 0.105. For experiment 2 it is
about 0.150. The difference in this latter experiment can explained
because the laser sheet is centered in the z direction, and it is
expected the velocity magnitude to decrease in both z directions,
because of the boundary layers in the upper and lower surfaces.
Some measurements in the yz plane should be performed in
order to confirm this point. More disconcerting is the low values
for the first and the third experiments. It could be due to a
poor estimation in the wall zones. A faster filming compared
to the others experiments and an inadequate illumination could
be responsible of this underestimation of the mean velocity for
experiments 1 and 3.
Velocity time series in the center line of the flow have been
analysed for the three experiments, at different distances d from
gearing zone. This distance is related to the diameter of the
gearwheels, D. In Fig. 8 the spectral density of energy is shown
for all experiments and distances. The points of measurements are
those displayed in Fig. 5, separated by a distance 0.1 D. Spectra
are calculated, as usual, as the square of the Discrete Fourier
Transform of velocity [14]. Frequencies are normalised with the
angular velocity of the experiment. In all the experiments the peaks
associated to gearing cycles are visible at f 2 / = 11, as well
as the first harmonic in 22 for the two firsts experiments. The
slope 5/3, corresponding to Kolmogorovs law in homogeneous
and isotropic turbulence, is shown for the purpose of comparison.
It seems that, as typical of two-dimensional turbulence [15,16],
for high enough Reynolds number, energy is being transferred
from the stirring scale to bigger ones. The smaller scales are not
properly resolved and thus numerical noise is visible instead of
the enstrophy cascade. It is suspected that this is because of
experimental uncertainty at high frequencies. For low Reynolds
number (experiment 1) there is no energy transferred to bigger
scales and the slope to lower scales is shyly observed for a small
range.
If the attention is paid at low frequencies (big scales), it is clearly
observed that the transfer of energy is lower with low rotational
velocity (low Re) and farther out.
The autocorrelations of velocity have been calculated as well. It
is defined, as usual [17], as

v 0 (t )v 0 (t + )


Rt ( ) =
v 0 (t )2


(12)

where v 0 (t ) is the fluctuation of the velocity over the mean, and

hi refers here to time average. The results are plotted in Fig. 9,
where the time has been normalised with the gearing period.
In the three cases the influence of the gearing perturbation is
clearly observed for /2 0.09 and multiples. For experiment
1 (low Reynolds number, Fig. 9a) even the first harmonic of
this perturbation is visible. For this experiment the velocity
experiences very fast decorrelation. The time of decorrelation is
about one tenth of the gearing period. That indicates that viscous
dissipation of energy acts much faster than energy injection of
gears. Thus, there is no possibility of turbulent motion is this flow.
For higher Reynolds number experiments (experiments 2 and 3)

R. Castilla et al. / Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

(a) t = 0.00 s.

381

(b) t = 0.004 s 0.2 T0 .

(c) t = 0.008 s 0.4 T0 .

(d) t = 0.012 s 0.6 T0 .

(e) t = 0.016 s 0.8 T0 .

Fig. 6. Contours of vorticity, streamlines and vector fields for the experiment 2, Re = 2400. The sequence corresponds to an approximately complete gear cycle. T0 = Z2
is the gearing period.

Table 1
Description of experiments
Exp.

n (rpm)

ReD

D (m/s)

Vel. of filming (fps)

Size of I.A. (pixels)

Size of I. Domain (pixels)

hvy i
D

1
2
3

55
245
365

520
2400
3400

0.31
1.37
2.04

1000
500
1000

16 16
32 32
64 64

630 322
494 258
494 258

0.105
0.150
0.105

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R. Castilla et al. / Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

These plots allow estimation of a typical macroscopic timescale

for the turbulence in the chamber, near the gearing zone. This time
is defined as
t1

Z
TI =

Rt ( )d

(13)

Fig. 7. Streamwise component of velocity for experiment 1, for different distances

to gearing zone. The velocity has been normalised with the rotational velocity of
gears. d is the distance from gearing region (see Fig. 5).

the decorrelation of velocity is slower compared with gearing

cycles and, thus, turbulent motion arises to bigger structures
before the energy is dissipated by viscosity. It is also clearly
observed how the correlation of velocity is stronger when the
test point is closer to gearing zone. In experiment 2 (Fig. 9b)
an strange behaviour is observed for intermediate points, with a
strong negative correlation. It is though that this is due to a strong
pulsed structure that affects directly to these points. The reason
why it is not observed for experiment 3 (Fig. 9c) is not clear.

(a) Experiment 1. ReD = 520.

where t1 is taken as the first pass through zero of the correlation

function, in order to avoid the subestimate in experiment 1 due
to negative correlation at low times. The results, in units of
normalised time are, respectively, TI = 0.015, 0.15 and 0.08. If
these values are compared with the period of gearing, 0.09, the big
value for experiment 2 seems to be strange, and, as noted before, it
can be because of a strong pulsating structure. The important key
is that for higher values of Reynolds number this integral timescale
grows up to times of the order of the gearing period.
Finally, spatial structure of the flow have been analysed by
means of energy density spectra as a function of the wavenumber
k. These spectra have been calculated from the distribution of
E vE k2 . As tested in usual DNS
enstrophy, defined as Z = 12 k
simulations [1821, and references there in] this method gives the
best resolution for small scales. It has been shown below how the
temporal resolution is not high enough to reflect the spectrum at
high frequencies with the usual method of calculating the spectra.
Now it can be observed in Fig. 10 this behaviour in the space with
the spectra calculated from the enstrophy. The wavenumber has
been normalised with the diameter of the wheels D, and both
slopes 5/3 and 3 are shown for the sake of comparison. It is
clearly observed for experiments 2 and 3 both typical cascades
of two-dimensional turbulence: enstrophy towards small scales

(b) Experiment 2. ReD = 2400.

(c) Experiment 3. ReD = 3400.

Fig. 8. Spectral density of energy in frequency for the three experiments for different distances to gearing zone. The frequency is normalised with the angular velocity .

R. Castilla et al. / Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

(a) Experiment 1. ReD = 520.

383

(b) Experiment 2. ReD = 2400.

(c) Experiment 3. ReD = 3400.

Fig. 9. Autocorrelations of velocity for the three experiments and different distances to gearing zone.

Fig. 10. Spectral density of energy in wavenumber for the three experiments.

(high k) and energy to big scales. For experiment 3 the slope of the
direct enstrophy cascade is even bigger than 3, as reported usually
in DNS experiments [21] and in experiments [16]. The separation
region between the direct and the inverse cascades corresponds to
the stirring scale, which is approximately, between one and two
tenth of D, i.e., the size of the teeth.
3. General discussion and conclusions
The possibility of using air bubbles to investigate, with TRPIV,
the flow inside the suction chamber of a gear pump is being

explored. It is the first time that such a technique is used with

gear pump or other oleohydraulic component. It has been shown
that this possibility is feasible despite of the high density ratio, the
buoyancy force and the modification of the sonic speed in twophase flows.
The main focus has been the time analysis of the velocity in
the central line of the flow. The spectra and autocorrelation have
been analysed in test points at different distances to the gear
zone. It is clear that the more close is the point to the gears the
more strong is the turbulence. For the experiments with high
Reynolds number, a transfer of energy from the teeth scale to
bigger ones is clearly observed. It is suggested to be an indication
of the two-dimensionality of the turbulence in this flow, in spite of
the impossibility to observe the enstrophy cascade because of the
numerical noise. Nevertheless, this range has been clearly observed
with the spectra in wavenumber, calculated from the vorticity
distribution.
The autocorrelation of velocities allow to define a turbulent
time scale which can be compared with the gearing period. For
low Reynolds number (ReD = 520) this time scale is of the order
of one tenth of the gearing period. That indicates that the viscous
dissipation of energy acts much faster than the injection from the
gearing. For higher Reynolds number the viscosity is not able to
dissipate the gearing energy and these time scales are of the same
order.
Although the good results obtained in particular points of the
central line and for moderate Reynolds numbers, the test bench
is being modified in order to increase the Reynolds number of
the experiment exploring the whole field. Future research can be

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R. Castilla et al. / Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 19 (2008) 377384

performed and the following modifications are suggested. Firstly,

the illumination window has to be modified in order to allow a
best coverage of the test zone, principally in the wall zones and
into the gearing region. Secondly, a new more powerful and faster
laser is being tested in order to get better temporal resolution.
This new pulsed infrared laser, with wavelength 805 nm and a
energy per pulse up to 25 mJ, has a maximum frequency of 5 kHz.
That will allow to analyse the high frequency range of the spectral
density of energy and, also, to increase the Reynolds number of the
experiments.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Prof. Doerffer, of the Polish Academy of Sciences,
for his useful comments and to Dr. van de Graaf for the help
using gpiv. Thanks to Pedro Roquet for providing the test pump
and to the staff of the laboratory of Fluid Mechanics of the U.P.C.
in Terrassa for the technical support. The financial support of
the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain, project DPI200614476, is acknowledged. Dr. Wojciechowski has joined a grant
for a years sabbatical from the States Secretary of Education and
Universities of Spain, cofinanced by the European Social Fund.
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