Abstracts

Topic: J. Lim, Y. Sivathanu, V. Narayanan, and S. Chang, (2003),

"Optical Patternation of a Water Spray Using Statistical Extinction Tomography,"

Atomization and Sprays, vol. 13, pp. 27-43.

Tomographic reconstruction of local liquid surface areas per unit volume in a turbulent spray using path-integrated laser transmittance measurements is reported. Path-integrated transmittances from a turbulent spray were obtained using a newly developed six-axes optical patternator. A multiaxis maximum-likelihood estimation algorithm was developed to deconvolute for the local extinction coefficients from the path-integrated transmittances. The local extinction coefficients are identical to the local liquid surface area per un it volume within the spray. The algorithm was first evaluated using synthetic path-integrated data. The algorithm successfully recovered the local extinction coefficients from the synthetic path-integrated transmittances. The algorithm was then used to obtain local liquid surface areas per unit volume from the path-integrated transmittance measurements in the spray. The path-integrated extinction measurements were also compared with mass flux data obtained using a mechanical pattemator. The results suggest that the local velocity and size distribution of the spray field is highly correlated with the local surface area density in sprays.