Try our new pulse separation calculator!

Calculate the theoretically required pulse separation.

Written by Frank

General

June 11, 2026

PIV Pulse Separation Calculator — iLA5150

PIV Engineering Tools

Engineering Calculator

PIV pulse separation & vector resolution.

Compute the required laser pulse separation ΔT, the in-pulse particle streak, and the spatial resolution of the resulting vector field for your PIV setup.

Inputs

Region of interest (ROI)

Physical size of the imaged area in the flow.

Sensor size

Camera sensor dimension matching the ROI axis.

Flow speed

Characteristic in-plane flow velocity.

Desired particle shift

Rule of thumb: ¼ of the interrogation area.

Pulse duration

Duration of a single laser pulse.

Interrogation area size

Side length of the correlation window.

Interrogation overlap

Spatial overlap between neighbouring windows.

Light-sheet thickness

Triggers out-of-plane loss-of-pairs check (worst-case v_z ≈ v_flow).

Results

Magnification

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In-plane particle velocity

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Required pulse separation ΔT

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Particle streak during pulse

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Vector-field resolution (spacing)

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