Two-line atomic fluorescence temperature measurement in flames: an experimental study

Abstract

The use of two-line atomic fluorescence (TLF) as a diagnostic tool in combustion research offers a number of advantages over other temperature measurement techniques. The most important is its potential to take data at rates high enough (10 kHz) to follow turbulent flow. An experimental investigation of the feasibility of constructing a TLF system with these capabilities has been carried out. To meet the high data rate requirements, dye-laser excitation sources and a computer data acquisition system were incorporated in a system that utilized the 410- and 451-nm transitions of indium seeded into a flat-flame methane burner. Preliminary one-shot results exhibited a precision of approximately 13% and 350 K accuracy and served to allow the identification of the major sources of experimental error associated with a TLF system of this type. Recommendations are made for eliminating these error sources, and it is expected that at high data rates precision and accuracy of better than 2% can be attained.