Instrumentation for ice crystal measurements

The overall goal of this CIF project was to determine if it is possible to detect the phase of water particles - water or ice - in a wind tunnel environment, and to possibly to measure their temperature as well. A Raman scattering technique was identified as being capable to not only distinguish particle phase, but to measure supercooled liquid particle temperature as well. This has been successfully bench-top investigated with both static and slow moving water particles. The next phase is to test the technology in PSL's icing cloud where a wide range of water particles sizes (2 - 1000 _m) will be moving at aircraft flight speeds (Mach 0.2 - 0.6).

A non-intrusive system that measures water phase and temperature in near real-time would be revolutionary in test facility instrumentation. These measurements, along with the existing cloud uniformity tomography system, allow a complete monitoring of the spray parameters that have only been measured during the facility calibration and never at the same time. The traditional calibration measurements would still be needed, but perhaps only to verify this new suite of measurements. This vastly improves quality control which can save a significant amount of run time while producing a verifiable test condition.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 2) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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