Quantitative 2D reconstruction of temperature and OH concentration in axisymmetric flames based on ultraviolet broadband absorption tomography

Abstract

Absorption tomography plays a crucial role in quantitatively imaging temperature and absolute concentration in combustion. However, there is scarce research on the tomography of OH radicals, which are significant for combustion diagnostics. This study presented a new tomography method to image OH radicals, termed ultraviolet broadband absorption tomography (UV-BAT). Three strategies were proposed to solve the nonlinear problem in UV-BAT tomography, namely all-spectra fitting, weak-absorption approximation, and multi-temperature approximation. The proposed UV-BAT method was applied for OH imaging in methane/air axisymmetric laminar Bunsen flames with different equivalence ratios (ϕ = 0.9, 1.0, and 1.1). The reconstructed OH distributions showed distinctive structures of Bunsen flames including premixed and diffusion flame areas. The accuracy of the UV-BAT method was validated by comparing tomography results with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations using the USC-Mech II mechanism, demonstrating good agreement in two-dimensional (2D) temperature and OH concentration distributions. This novel method offers new opportunities for tomographic reconstruction of free radicals such as OH and temperature in small-scale flames.Novelty and significanceThis study demonstrated a novel tomography imaging method using ultraviolet broadband absorption spectroscopy to reconstruct temperature and radical concentration in combustion. This method possesses high sensitivity to free radicals and employs compact and inexpensive equipment, making it one of the most viable methods for realizing free radical absorption tomography. The 2D imaging of OH radicals using this method based on axisymmetric absorption tomography was accomplished for the first time. In conclusion, this study enriched the diagnostic methods of flame radicals based on absorption spectroscopy and provided new ideas for small-scale temperature tomography.