Scattering Tomography and Its Application to Sooting Diffusion Flames

Abstract

A new analytical tomographic reconstruction technique was developed for the determination of the extinction and scattering coefficient distributions in axisymmetric media. This method, called “scattering tomography,” was tested for several particle concentration profiles corresponding to those for diffusion flames. After that, a series of experiments were performed on sooting acetylene flames using an argon-ion laser nephelometer. The experimental results were reduced using both the transmission and scattering tomography techniques to obtain the extinction coefficient profiles. It was shown that in the center of the flame, the results from these two approaches were in good agreement. Scattering tomography can be used to determine both the absorption and scattering coefficient distributions in the medium. In addition to that, it is preferable over the transmission tomography if the medium is optically very thin and particles are predominantly scattering.