Simultaneous Temperature and Velocity Diagnostic for Reacting Flows

A diagnostic technique is proposed for measuring temperature and velocity simultaneously in a high temperature reacting flow for aiding research in propulsion. The technique involves seeding particles of a ceramic thermographic phosphor into the flow and illuminating them with two overlapping pulsed laser sheets. Laser-induced luminescence from the particles will be measured to obtain temperature from its effects on luminescence lifetime. Velocity will be obtained simultaneously from the same particles using conventional particle image velocimetry (PIV). Each of the two diagnostics will employ a separate CCD camera that captures a pair of images separated by a short delay. For the thermometry technique, pixel intensity ratios of the delayed to the undelayed images will be related to temperature via a calibration function. In the PIV technique, particle displacements between the images will be obtained using conventional interrogation window techniques with cross-correlation. The proposed diagnostic is expected to enable spatially and temporally correlated measurements of two key variables in combustion modeling that cannot be obtained in most high temperatures flows using currently available methods. The phase I effort will demonstrate feasibility measurements in a flame.

A diagnostic for simultaneously measuring temperature and velocity in a high temperature reacting flow does not currently exist on the market and would find widespread use in combustion research. Government labs, research institutions and universities, aircraft engine manufacturers, and automobile engine manufacturers will be targeted as potential users of this technology.

The proposed technology would benefit NASA in the development of future air-breathing aerospace vehicles by providing an experimental way to verify models of turbulent reacting flow. Cross correlations of velocity and temperature are fundamental to physics based models of combustion processes, yet very little experimental data of this nature currently exists. This diagnostic should enable experimental investigations of combustors and combustion rigs that should help advance development in the areas of extremely-low-emission engines, propulsion control and engine health management, and modeling and simulation.

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