Rotational CARS thermometry in diffusion flames: On the influence of nitrogen spectral line-broadening by CH4 and H-2

• Rotational CARS N-2 thermometry has been developed for improved accuracy in spatial flame regions with high concentrations of either H-2 or CH4, which are typical conditions on the fuel side of diffusion flames. In initial validation experiments up to 700 K, rotational CARS measurements were performed in binary mixtures of H-2 and N-2. Subsequent spectral evaluation with commonly used N-2-N-2 Raman line widths clearly underestimated the real temperatures. Inclusion of recently calculated N-2-H-2 spectral line-broadening coefficients weighted by the concentration of hydrogen resulted in CARS temperatures in much better agreement with the true temperatures. Based on this validation work, improved temperature accuracy was achieved in flame measurements on the fuel side of a hydrogen diffusion flame by probing nitrogen simultaneously with the detection of the hydrogen S-0-transition at 354 cm(-1), and weighting the species specific Raman line widths with the information of relative concentration. The validation experiments were repeated for binary mixtures of nitrogen and methane up to 500 K. It was shown that N-2-N-2 Raman line widths gave reproducible temperatures independent of methane concentration in binary mixtures with nitrogen, thus no explicit knowledge on N-2-CH4 Raman line widths is needed for this temperature region. In general, the impact of Raman line widths for accurate rotational CARS thermometry is demonstrated. (C) 2010 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Atom- och molekylfysik och optik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Rotational CARS thermometry

Non-linear spectroscopy

Raman line

widths

Diffusion flame

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)