QUANTITATIVE SPECIES MEASUREMENTS IN

MICROGRAVITY COMBUSTION FLAMES

Joel A. Silver l, William R. Wood 1, Shin-Juh Chen 2, Werner J.A. Dahm 2, and Nancy D. Piltch 3
1Southwest Sciences, Inc., 1570 Pacheco Street, Suite E-11, Santa Fe, NM 87505
2Laboratory for Turbulence & Combustion (LTC), Department of Aerospace
Engineering, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, M148109-2140
3NASA Glenn Research Center, MS I 10-3, Cleveland, OH 44153

INTRODUCTION

Flame-vortex interactions are canonical configurations that can be used to study the underlying
processes occunfng in complicated turbulent reacting flows. The elegant simplicity of the flame-
vortex interaction permits the study of these complex interactions under relatively controllable
experimental configurations, in contrast to direct measurements in turbulent flames. The ability to
measure and model the fundamental phenomena that occur in a turbulent flame, but with time and
spatial scales which are amenable to our diagnostics, permits significant improvements in the
understanding of turbulent combustion under both normal and reduced gravity conditions.

In this paper, we report absolute mole fraction measurements of methane in a reacting vortex
ring. These microgravity experiments are performed in the 2.2-sec drop tower at NASA Glenn
Research Center. In collaboration with Drs. Chen and Dahm at the University of Michigan,
measured methane absorbances are incorporated into a new model from which the temperature and
concentrations of all major gases in the flame can be determined at all positions and times in the
development of the vortex ring. This is the first demonstration of the/TAC (Iterative Temperature
with Assumed Chemistry) approach, and the results of these computations and analyses are
presented in a companion paper by Dahrn and Chert [ 1] at this Workshop. We believe that the ITAC
approach will become a powerful tool in understanding a wide variety of combustion flames under
both equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions.

EXPERIMENTAL

Determination of the gas concentrations and temperatures is accomplished by tunable diode

laser absorption using 2fwavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS) [2-3]. With an axisymmetric
flame, line-of-sight absorption measurements are inverted [4] to provide radial mole fraction profiles
with high spatial and temporal resolution. The new system used in this work is more compact and
uses much less power than earlier designs. This accomplishment arises from the use of a digital
signal processor (DSP) to control the hardware, acquire and process the data, and then transmit the
data to a laptop computer after the drop.

The vortex ring is generated by issuing methane into an air environment through the exit of an
axisymmetric nozzle. The experiments are conducted under microgravity conditions in order to
remove the undesirable effects of buoyancy that can affect both the flame structure and ring
dynamics resulting in possibly asymmetric and non-repeatable interactions [5]. Figure 1 is a
photograph of the experiment drop package, showing the vacuum system, vortex generator system,

NASAJCP--2001-210826 61
 nozzle/plenum assembly, WMS
controller and data acquisition
system on the top shelf. The laser
absorption system and test section
hang below the center of this, where
the laser beam scanning region can
be adjusted to any distance below the
nozzle plane. The power supply for
spark generation, power distributor,
batteries, B/W CCD camera, and
video transmitters reside on the
bottom shelf.

The vortex ring and drop rig

have been described in detail
previously [6,7]. The ring diameter
in these experiments is 2 cm. Since
methane is lighter than air, the flame
is pointed downward so that the pre-
drop mixing with air for proper
ignition can be accomplished. The Figure 1 - Experimental drop rig package.
laser DSP system has also been
described in a prior publication [8], but in brief, comprises a 1-mm dia. collimated laser beam
pointed onto a raster scanner mirror. The center of this mirror is located at the focal point of an off-
axis paraboloidal reflector (OAP). As the scanner is rotated over an angle of-13 °, the laser beam
tracks in parallel lines across the flame. A second OAP collects the beam and refocuses it onto an
extended-wavelength InGaAs photodiode. The result of this process is that data acquired
sequentially in time can be used to obtain spatially-resolved line-of-sight measurements through the
flame.

In these experiments, a Sensors Unlimited diode laser is used to detect the nearly degenerate
rotational triplet R3 A2 in the 2u 3 vibrational band of methane at 1652.9 rim. Spectroscopic
parameters used to analyze these spectra are obtained from the HITRAN database [9]. Each
spectrum of 65 points, spanning a 1.38 cm 1 wavelength range, are recorded in 3.0 msec. The raster
scanner is set up so that the product of spatial steps and scans/second is constant, so that for a scan
range of 30 mm at a resolution of 2 ram, a full spatial map is acquired in 5I msec. A number of
rims were made with higher spatial resolution (1 mm) over a shorter total range of 16 mm, and
higher temporal resolution (25 msec) with a 2 mm spacing over a 16 mm range. These help us to
interpolate all of the data to higher resoiution. ......

The DSP board controls all laser and scanner ramps, and acquires the raw data from the
photodiode. These data are then 2fdemodulated at the correct phase, normalized to the incident laser
intensity and stored for subsequent download. The vortex ring is ignited approximately 0.5 seconds
after the rig is released.

NASA/CP--2001-210826 62
RESULTS

Spatial-temporal maps of
methane in the microgravity flame
vortex were recorded at heights of
5.0 mm, 12.7 mm and 19.1 mm.
Noise and background terms (offsets
and optical interference fringes) are
removed us'_mg a singular valued 2O

decomposition (SVD) approach

which determines a set of orthogonal
basis functions to represent the data
where no true absorptions of methane 0 _-0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0
are present (i.e., at times before the Wavelength (cnft)
vortex ring is released). The actual Figure 2 - 2f WMS spectra of methane for different
integrated absorbance of each distances from flame center at a height of 12.5 mm, 0.75
projection and time is found by a seconds after the package was released.
multi-linear least-squares fit of the
experimental spectrum to a design matrix comprised of a reference spectrum (0.10 mole fraction
methane at 733 Torr and 296 K) and the largest fifteen background basis vectors. An example of
filtered spectra at a particular drop time is shown in Fig. 2. The 16 spectra correspond to each of the
spatial locations between the center of the flame and 30 mm away at 2 mm increments. Larger
absorbances closer to the vortex centerline (0 mm) are observed.

The resulting absorbance maps as a function of projection distance are then inverted to radial
maps using the Abel inversion routines of Dasch [4]. From the radial absorbances, we then
determine absolute mole fractions at each position and time assuming methane is at the reference
condition. Contour maps of these results are shown in Fig. 3.

Collapsing the spectra to a single absorbance before the radial inversion is truly valid only if
the 2fline _ is independent of temperature and mole fraction. While not strictly true, we can
compute correction factors that can be applied to the radial absorbanees to accommodate these
effects. These correction terms, as well as factors for temperature-dependent cross sections, are
applied in the ITAC iterations to produce final temperature and concentration maps. These are
presented in the companion paper by Dahm and Chen[ 1].

DISCUSSION

As confirmed by the video record of the vortex ring, the flame front rapidly expands into its
characteristic shape with a diameter of approximately 2 cm. As will be shown [1], the nominal mole
fractions observed here will significantly increase to expected levels when the temperature
corrections are applied.

Besides our earlier work [8,10], there are no other published results of quantitative species
concentration measurements in microgravity combustion. This paper demonstrates that these type

NASAJCP--2001-210826 63
 of measurements can
provide detailed spatial
and temporal information
that can be of great
assistance toward
improving the detailed
models and our 0.04

understanding of
combustion phenomena
under microgravity
conditions. The ITAC
method may prove to be a
very powerful tool in
elucidating the lO
composition of many Radial 5
flames. Distance ,
(mm) 0 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Drop Time (sec)
As part of this effort,
Figure 3 - Contour maps of nominal mole fraction (at reference
we plan to expand these
measurements to other conditions) at heights of a) 19.1 ram, b) 12.7 mm and c) 5.0 mm from
the nozzle plane as a function of drop time and radial distance from the
gases such as CO 2 or H20
to fill in the spatial flame center axis.
regions where methane has been consumed, as well as measure OH radical mole fractions. Hydroxyl
measurements would allow the 1TAC method to be expanded to reacting flows where non-
equilibrium chemistry effects are important. We also hope to compare these measurements to other
combustion system in both normal and reduced gravity ....... =

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was performed under NASA Contract NAS3-99140 and Grant NAG3-1639.

REFERENCES 7

1. Dahm, WJ.A., Chen S.-J., Silver, J.A., Piltch, N.D. and VanderWal, R.L., "Turbulent flame processes
via diffusion flame-vortex ring interactions", Sixth InternationalMicrogravity Combustion Workshop,
(2001).
2. Silver, J.A., Appl. Opt. 31, 707-717 (1992).
3. Bomse, D.S., Stanton, A.C. and Silver, J.A. Appl. Opt. 31,718-731 (1992).
4. Dasch, C.J., Appl. Opt. 31, 1146-152 (1992).
5, Chen S.-J., Dahm, W.J.A., Silver, J.A. and Piltch, N.I_., _aper 2001:0i 87 (200i).
6. Chen S.-J. and Dahm, W.J.A., Fourth International Microgravity Combustion Workshop, NASA CP-
10191, 191-196 (i997)_
7. Chela, S.-J., Dahm, WJ.A., Proc. Combust Institute 27, 2579-2586(i998).
8. Silver, J.A., and Kane, D.J., Meas. Sci. Technol. 10, 845-852 (1999).
9. L.S. Rothman et al., J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 48, 469 (1992); updates 1998, 2001.
10. Silver, J.A., Kane, D.J. and Greenberg, P.J., Appl. Opt, 34, 2787-2801 (1995).

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