Volumetric PTV Measurements of Flow Around and Within a Model of Gale Crater*

Impact craters on the surface of Mars record the history of the geological processes which shape the surface of the planet. The central mound within Gale Crater is thought to be formed by aeolian weathering, and it has been hypothesized that secondary flow structures within the crater are responsible for the long-term evolution of the morphology of the crater as a whole. Here we experimentally study the flow structure within the crater through fully three-dimensional velocity measurements in a refractive index matching (RIM) flow facility. The refractive index of a cast-acrylic model of Gale Crater is matched with an aqueous solution of Sodium Iodide, allowing full optical access to the recessed region of the crater. This region of the flow is critical to understanding the flow physics driving the geological evolution of the crater and the formation of the mound in its center. The results presented herein are obtained using TSI’s V3V system which utilizes a volumetric particle tracking approach to yield high resolution 3D vector fields. This talk will highlight increased yield and accuracy of the PTV results and associated statistics using a 3D particle reconstruction method based on a multiple particle identification approach.