HighSpeed – Parma super high-speed camera lab

HighSpeed realizes high frame-rate-motion videos for understanding events too fast for the human eye in the following fields:

Automotive
Impact testing, airbag deployment testing, over road, suspension testing, vehicle research and design.

Behaviour Analysis
Animal locomotion and stress-evoked behaviour, escape response, food-procuring movements.

Biomechanics
Fine motor skills, flight kinematics, potentially pathological biomechanical mechanisms

Combustion
Mechanics of combustion events and visual characteristics once substances are ignited.

Digital Image Correlation
Digital Image Correlation (DIC) can detect micro-level strain and displacement on the surface of accelerating bodies.

Error Analysis
Fast and detailed analysis of sporadic errors in industrial processes.

Fluid Dynamics
Detailed visualization of the complex behavior of liquids, gases, and plasmas in motion leading to innovations in the study of cavitation, atomization, spray analysis, turbulence, fast releases, etc.

Industry and Manufacturing
Machine design, setup, testing, fault troubleshooting, routine and preventive maintenance. Robotics. Transport, filling, labeling and packaging in food and pharmaceutical applications. Identification of aerosol plumes geometry, etc.

Laser illumination
Laser lights provide a sharply focused beam that enables high-speed imaging cameras to see through the bright emissions of light that characterise some phenomena and that can blind the camera and obscure the details of the analysed processes.

Material Testing
Observation and recording of phenomena that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye such as the materials’ instantaneous moment of failure (e.g. cracks in glass). This can help in developing stronger and safer materials.

Sport Analysis
High-speed video cameras are of greatest importance for every sport scientist or coach to analyse athletic motion in training and competition.

Facilities:

The laboratory is equipped with:

• a super high-speed video camera (Phantom v1840) with a 4 Mpx monochrome sensor with a pixel size of 13.5 microns and high sensitivity. At maximum resolution (2048x1944) it is capable of shooting up to 4510 frames per second, at reduced resolution (640x480) up to 19840 frames per second. For more details, see the website

 https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/products/cameras/ultrahighspeed/v1840

• lenses (Canon EF mount) from wide-angle to telephoto to special design (tilt/shift) to cover most of the possible shooting conditions.
• two high-efficiency Fresnel lens spotlight (Super LED F10 from De Sisti) with variable beam angle from 12° (170100 cd) to 55° (22500 cd) for best illumination of the shooting area.

Most relevant Awarded grants:
The cost of the equipment was partly supported by the University of Parma through the Scientific Instrumentation Upgrade Programme 2019.

Selected links from the camera producer website
https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/resourcesandsupport/phantomresources/videolibrary#Automotive
https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/resourcesandsupport/phantomresources/videolibrary#Industrial
https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/resourcesandsupport/phantomresources/videolibrary#Nature
https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/resourcesandsupport/phantomresources/videolibrary#Science

Contact person: Paolo Mignosa - paolo.mignosa@unipr.it; Francesca Aureli - francesca.aureli@unipr.it