The US Air Force's Wright Patterson Research Laboratory at Dayton, Ohio, has developed a new flow visualisation technique for combustion flows, using holography and lasers.
The flow is recorded by firing two Nd:YAG lasers into it, injection seeded with titanium oxide particles to allow reconstruction of the flow as a holographic image using a single Nd:YVO4 laser, with a wavelength matching the recording laser, at 532 nanometres.
The research team has successfully applied the system to reacting and non-reacting propane jet flows, reports Aerospace America, the journal of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. The ultimate aim is to record images on holographic film to play it back as a three-dimensional holographic film.
Source: Flight International