Interferometric technique and other optical methods in combustion research: new approach

Abstract

A new approach to the interferometric and other optical techniques in combustion research is under discussion. It relies on the direct employment of the property of integrality of the techniques. This approach makes it possible to assess characteristics of the burning wave which describe the gaseous phase of burning (or combustion process as a whole) taken in its entirety, and those averaged over the gaseous phase mass, its volume or sections of the gaseous phase flow. They are evaluated without solving inverse problems of optics, which have to be solved with a number of current optical methods applied in a conventional manner to the quantitative studies of physical processes. As far as interferometry is concerned, the evolution of the approach has eventually enabled the solving of problems in a wide variety of tasks of the combustion, gas dynamic and heat transfer research, which are otherwise difficult to solve experimentally. Also the paper deals with a new approach to the traditional problem of quantitative interferometry, i.e. to the definition of flame temperature and density fields. In this approach any change in the flame gas mixture composition is taken into consideration for a variety of gaseous and condensed systems based on general principles.