Simulation on simultaneous estimation of non-uniform temperature and soot volume fraction distributions in axisymmetric sooting flames

For visualizing non-uniform absorbing, emitting, non-scattering, axisymmetric sooting flames, because conventional two-color emission methods are no longer suitable, a three-color emission method for the simultaneous estimation of temperature and soot volume fraction distributions in these flames is studied in this paper. The spectral radiation intensities at wavelengths of red, green, and blue, which may be derived from color flame images, are simulated for the inverse analysis. Then the simultaneous estimation is carried out from the spectral radiation intensities by using a Newton-type iteration algorithm and the least-squares method. In this method, a factor is used to balance the wide variation of spectral radiation intensities due to both the wide ranges of temperature and wavelength of the flame radiation. The results indicate that the three-color method is suited for the reconstruction of flame structures with single or double peaks with small difference between the peak and valley. For a double-peaked flame structure with larger peak and valley difference, reasonable result can be obtained just when the mean square deviations of measurement data are small, for example, not more than 0.01. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.