Simultaneous diode laser based in situ quantification of oxygen, carbon monoxide, water vapor, and liquid water in a dense water mist environment

Abstract

We designed a three-channel tunable diode laser absorption spectrometer to make simultaneous in situ measurements of oxygen, carbon monoxide and water vapor in fire environments to aid in the evaluation of water-based fire suppression systems. The instrument also provides simultaneous information on the liquid water content via optical density measurements by evaluation of the captured direct absorption waveforms. We evaluated the spectrometer in a 1350 L test enclosure containing a small propane flame and a piezoelectric generated water mist of sub-10 μm drops. Mist drop number densities were on the order of 10 6 cm −3 resulting in transmission losses of greater than 99.99% for a sample pathlength of 21.6 cm. We were able to detect and quantify oxygen from transmission levels of 100% down to 0.01% with uncertainties of 0.1 and 0.4 vol%, respectively. The water vapor concentration uncertainty never exceeded 0.06 vol% even during times of heavy mist loading. Carbon monoxide levels produced in the test enclosure were below the 250 ppm detection limit determined from analysis of the noise levels in our detected signals. The liquid water content uncertainty was less than 0.01 g H 2 O / L air for values that typically reached 0.18 g H 2 O / L air .