Bubble dynamics and atomization of acoustically levitated diesel and biodiesel droplets using femtosecond laser pulses.

This study focuses on the bubble dynamics and associated breakup of individual droplets of diesel and biodiesel under the influence of femtosecond laser pulses. The bubble dynamics were examined by suspending the droplets in the air through an acoustically levitated setup. The laser pulse energies ranged from 25 to 1050 µJ, and droplet diameters varied between 0.25 and 1.5 mm. High-speed shadowgraphy was employed to examine the influence of femtosecond laser intensity and multiple laser pulses on various spatial-temporal parameters. Four distinct sequences of regimes have been identified, depending on early and late times: bubble creation by individual laser pulses, coalescence, bubble rupture and expansion, and droplet fragmentation. At all laser intensities, early-time dynamics showed only bubble generation, while specifically at higher intensities, late-time dynamics revealed droplet breaking. The droplet breakup is further categorized into three mechanisms: steady sheet collapse, unstable sheet breakup, and catastrophic breakup, all following a well-known ligament and secondary breakup process. The study reveals that laser pulses with high repetition rates and moderate laser energy were the optimal choice for precise bubble control and cutting.

Simultaneous imaging of CH*, C2∗, and temperature in flames using a DSLR camera and structured illumination.

Measurement of chemical species and temperature mapping in flames is essential to understanding the combustion process. Multiple cameras are conventionally employed for measurement in such scenarios making the experimental setup not only cost-intensive but also challenging. To circumvent this, structured illumination (SI)-based methods are reported for multispecies chemiluminescence (CL) imaging using a single camera. In this paper, we demonstrate four-channel SI-based imaging for simultaneous snapshot C H ∗ and C2∗ CL imaging and two-color pyrometry for temperature profiles in a butane diffusion flame. We demonstrate our approach using individual species and multiple species imaging. Taking the advantage of the axisymmetric nature of the flame, the Abel transform is performed on the line-of-sight averaged images to obtain deconvoluted images. The deconvoluted maps of temperature are compared with the temperature data obtained by using a physical thermocouple probe.

Single-pulse real-time billion-frames-per-second planar imaging of ultrafast nanoparticle-laser dynamics and temperature in flames.

Unburnt hydrocarbon flames produce soot, which is the second biggest contributor to global warming and harmful to human health. The state-of-the-art high-speed imaging techniques, developed to study non-repeatable turbulent flames, are limited to million-frames-per-second imaging rates, falling short in capturing the dynamics of critical species. Unfortunately, these techniques do not provide a complete picture of flame-laser interactions, important for understanding soot formation. Furthermore, thermal effects induced by multiple consecutive pulses modify the optical properties of soot nanoparticles, thus making single-pulse imaging essential. Here, we report single-shot laser-sheet compressed ultrafast photography (LS-CUP) for billion-frames-per-second planar imaging of flame-laser dynamics. We observed laser-induced incandescence, elastic light scattering, and fluorescence of soot precursors - polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in real-time using a single nanosecond laser pulse. The spatiotemporal maps of the PAHs emission, soot temperature, primary nanoparticle size, soot aggregate size, and the number of monomers, present strong experimental evidence in support of the theory and modeling of soot inception and growth mechanism in flames. LS-CUP represents a generic and indispensable tool that combines a portfolio of ultrafast combustion diagnostic techniques, covering the entire lifecycle of soot nanoparticles, for probing extremely short-lived (picoseconds to nanoseconds) species in the spatiotemporal domain in non-repeatable turbulent environments. Finally, LS-CUP's unparalleled capability of ultrafast wide-field temperature imaging in real-time is envisioned to unravel mysteries in modern physics such as hot plasma, sonoluminescence, and nuclear fusion.

Controlling bubble generation by femtosecond laser-induced filamentation.

Femtosecond laser-induced optical breakdown in liquids results in filamentation, which involves the formation and collapse of bubbles. In the present work, we elucidate spatio-temporal evolution, interaction, and dynamics of the filamentation-induced bubbles in a liquid pool as a function of a broad spectrum of laser pulse energies (∼1 to 800 µJ), liquid media (water, ethanol, and glycerol), and the number of laser pulses. Filament attributes such as length and diameter have been demarcated and accurately measured by employing multiple laser pulses and were observed to have a logarithmic dependence on laser energy, irrespective of the medium. The size distribution of persisting microbubbles is controlled by varying the pulse energy and the number of pulses. Our experimental results reveal that introducing consecutive pulses leads to strong interaction and coalescence of the pulsating bubbles via Bjerknes force due to laser-induced acoustic field generation. The successive pulses also influence the population density and size distribution of the micro-bubbles. We also explore the size, shape, and agglomeration of bubbles near the focal region by controlling the laser energy for different liquids. The insights from this work on filamentation-induced bubble dynamics can be of importance in diverse applications such as surface cleaning, fluid mixing and emulsification, and biomedical engineering.

Application of FRAME for Simultaneous LIF and LII Imaging in Sooting Flames Using a Single Camera.

In this article, the application of the FRAME (Frequency Recognition Algorithm for Multiple Exposures) technique is presented for multi-species measurements in symmetric and asymmetric ethylene/air diffusion flames. Laminar Bunsen-type and swirled diffusion flames are investigated to gain a better understanding of sooting combustion. For this purpose, simultaneous imaging is conducted in terms of Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) and Laser-Induced Incandescence (LII) of soot particles. Subsequently, the approach is utilized for simultaneous imaging of hydroxyl (OH)-LIF and soot-LII. Here, the modulated LIF- and LII-signals are acquired together as a single sub-image-with a single exposure utilizing the full sensor size of a single camera. By employing the frequency-recognition algorithm on the single image, the LIF- and LII-signals are spectrally isolated-generating two individual LIF- and LII-images. The flame luminosity and out-of-focus light such as reflected surrounding laser light are detected as non-modulated signals in the unprocessed image. These unwanted signals are suppressed using the image post-processing, and, therefore, the image contrast of the two resulting images is improved. It is found that PAHs mainly exist in the inner region near the burner and are surrounded by soot. The majority of the OH is distributed on the outer edges of the flame-representing the reaction zone and soot-oxidation region of the flame.

Characterization of fuel/water mixtures and emulsions with ethanol using laser-induced fluorescence.

In charged spark-ignition engines, additional water injection allows for the reduction of temperature under stoichiometric mixture conditions. However, a higher complexity of the injection and combustion processes is introduced when a mixture of fuel and water ("emulsion") is injected directly into the combustion chamber using the same injector. For this purpose, the mixture must be homogenized before injection so that a reproducible composition can be adjusted. In principle, gasoline and water are not miscible, and may form an unstable macro-emulsion during mixing. However, the addition of ethanol, which is a biofuel component that is admixed to gasoline, can improve the mixing and may lead to a stable micro-emulsion. For the assessment of the distribution of the water and fuel phases in the mixture, a novel imaging concept based on laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) is proposed. In a first spectroscopic study, a fluorescence dye for imaging of the water phase is selected and evaluated. The fluorescence spectra of the dye dissolved in pure water are investigated under varied conditions using a simplified pressure cell equipped with a stirrer. The study comprises effects of temperature, dye concentration, and photo-dissociation on fluorescence signals. In a second step, fuel is mixed with water (5 vol. % to 10 vol. %) containing the dye, and the water dispersion in the fuel is investigated in an imaging study. Additionally, the miscibility of fuel and water is studied for varying ethanol content, and the homogeneity of the mixture is determined. These first investigations are also essential for the assessment of the potential of the LIF technique for studying the distribution of the water phase in internal combustion engine injection systems and sprays.

3D mapping of droplet Sauter mean diameter in sprays.

In this study, we report on the three-dimensional (3D) characterization of a spray in terms of its droplet Sauter mean diameter (SMD) using the laser-induced fluorescence (LIF)/Mie ratio technique. The spray structure is analyzed for a multi-hole direct-injection spark ignition (DISI) injector. A calibration curve to convert the LIF/Mie ratio to droplet diameter is deduced using LIF/Mie imaging and analysis of single droplets generated by a droplet generator. The DISI spray investigated here is optically sectioned by means of two-phase structured laser illumination planar imaging to suppress the intensity of multiple light scattering from LIF and Mie images prior to their ratio. A series of calibrated LIF/Mie ratio images of spray is then recorded at several depths along the z direction following the light sheet scanning of the spray. The droplet SMD ranges from less than 5 µm up to a maximum of 50 µm in single-shot images. The averaged SMD results (1-30 µm) obtained by using the calibration curve from the droplet generator are compared with measurement results from phase-Doppler anemometry. Finally, a 3D map is reconstructed from the successive 2D layers generated from spray scanning. The resulting 3D representation of the droplet SMD shows a non-symmetric spray structure produced by the studied multi-hole injector, which cannot be resolved by analyzing only one central plane.

Analysis of LIF and Mie signals from single micrometric droplets for instantaneous droplet sizing in sprays.

Planar droplet sizing (PDS) is a technique relying on the assumption that laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and Mie scattering optical signals from spherical droplets depend on their volume and surface area, respectively. In this article, we verify the validity of this assumption by experimentally analyzing the light intensity of the LIF and Mie optical signals from micrometric droplets as a function of their diameter. The size of the droplets is controlled using a new flow-focusing monodisperse droplet generator capable of producing droplets of the desired size in the range of 21 µm to 60 µm. Ethanol droplets doped with eosin dye and excited at 532 nm are considered in this study, and the individual droplets were imaged simultaneously at microscopic and macroscopic scale. The effects of laser power, dye concentration, and temperature variation are systematically studied as a function of LIF/Mie ratio in the whole range of droplet sizes. Finally, a calibration curve at tracer concentration of 0.5 vol% is deduced and used to extract the droplet Sauter mean diameter (SMD) from instantaneous images of a transient ethanol spray. This droplet size mapping is done using structured laser illumination planar imaging (SLIPI), in order to suppress the artifacts induced by multiple light scattering.

Two-phase SLIPI for instantaneous LIF and Mie imaging of transient fuel sprays.

We report in this Letter a two-phase structured laser illumination planar imaging [two-pulse SLIPI (2p-SLIPI)] optical setup where the "lines structure" is spatially shifted by exploiting the birefringence property of a calcite crystal. By using this optical component and two cross-polarized laser pulses, the shift of the modulated pattern is not "time-limited" anymore. Consequently, two sub-images with spatially mismatched phases can be recorded within a few hundred of nanoseconds only, freezing the motion of the illuminated transient flow. In comparison with previous setups for instantaneous imaging based on structured illumination, the current optical design presents the advantage of having a single optical path, greatly simplifying its complexity. Due to its virtue of suppressing the effects from multiple light scattering, the 2p-SLIPI technique is applied here in an optically dense multi-jet direct-injection spark-ignition (DISI) ethanol spray. The fast formation of polydispersed droplets and appearance of voids after fuel injection are investigated by simultaneous detection of Mie scattering and liquid laser-induced fluorescence. The results allow for significantly improved analysis of the spray structure.

Thermometry in aqueous solutions and sprays using two-color LIF and structured illumination.

In imaging, the detection of light originating from multiple scattering, indirect reflections and surrounding backgrounds are known to produce errors especially in intensity-ratio based measurements. SLIPI (Structured Laser Illumination Planar Imaging) is an imaging technique that significantly reduces the impact of such issues. In this study, SLIPI is combined with the two-color LIF (Laser Induced Fluorescence) ratio thermometry approach for measuring water temperature in both a cuvette and a hollow-cone spray. By removing the unwanted background interferences using SLIPI, we observe both significant improvements in terms of temperature sensitivity as well as more pronounced temperature gradients within the spray.

Reliable LIF/Mie droplet sizing in sprays using structured laser illumination planar imaging.

In this article, Structured Laser Illumination Planar Imaging (SLIPI) is used in combination with the LIF/Mie ratio technique for extracting a reliable two-dimensional mapping of the droplets Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD). We show that even for the case of a fairly dilute spray, where single scattering events are in majority, the conventional LIF/Mie technique still remains largely affected by errors introduced by multiple light scattering. To remove this unwanted light intensity on both the LIF and Mie images SLIPI is used prior to apply the image ratio. For the first time, the SLIPI LIF/Mie results are calibrated and compared with measurement data from Phase Doppler Interferometry (PDI).