Beam Misalignments and Fluid Velocities in Laser-Induced Thermal Acoustics

Beam misalignments and bulk fluid velocities can influence the time history and intensity of laser-induced thermal acoustics (LITA) signals. A closed-form analytic expression for LITA signals incorporating these effects is derived, allowing the magnitude of beam misalignment and velocity to be inferred from the signal shape. It is demonstrated how instantaneous, nonintrusive, and remote measurement of sound speed and velocity (Mach number) can be inferred simultaneously from homodyne-detected LITA signals. The effects of different forms of beam misalignment are explored experimentally and compared with theory, with good agreement, allowing the amount of misalignment to be measured from the LITA signal. This capability could be used to correct experimental misalignments and account for the effects of misalignment in other LITA measurements. It is shown that small beam misalignments have no influence on the accuracy or repeatability of sound speed measurements with LITA

Accuracy and uncertainty of single-shot, nonresonant laser-induced thermal acoustics

We study the accuracy and uncertainty of single-shot nonresonant laser-induced thermal acoustics measurements of the speed of sound and the thermal diffusivity in unseeded atmospheric air from electrostrictive gratings as a function of the laser power settings. For low pump energies, the measured speed of sound is too low, which is due to the influence of noise on the numerical data analysis scheme. For pump energies comparable to and higher than the breakdown energy of the gas, the measured speed of sound is too high. This is an effect of leaving the acoustic limit, and instead creating finite-amplitude density perturbations. The measured thermal diffusivity is too large for high noise levels but it decreases below the predicted value for high pump energies. The pump energy where the error is minimal coincides for the speed of sound and for the thermal diffusivity measurements. The errors at this minimum are 0.03% and 1%, respectively. The uncertainties for the speed of sound and the thermal diffusivity decrease monotonically with signal intensity to 0.25% and 5%, respectively

A general methodology and applications for conduction-like flow-channel design.

A novel design methodology is developed for creating conduction devices in which fields are piecewise uniform. This methodology allows the normally analytically intractable problem of Lagrangian transport to be solved using algebraic and trigonometric equations. Low-dispersion turns, manifolds, and expansions are developed. In this methodology, regions of piece-wise constant specific permeability (permeability per unit width) border each other with straight, generally tilted interfaces. The fields within each region are made uniform by satisfying a simple compatibility relation between the tilt angle and ratio of specific permeability of adjacent regions. This methodology has particular promise in the rational design of quasi-planar devices, in which the specific permeability is proportional to the depth of the channel. For such devices, the methodology can be implemented by connecting channel facets having two or more depths, fabricated, e.g., using a simple two-etch process

A PIV Methodology for High-Resolution Measurement of Flow Statistics

Particle-image velocimetry (PIV) is a flow-diagnostic technique that provides velocity fields from a comparison of images of particulate-laden flow. We have developed a PIV processing methodology that extracts measurements of the particle-displacement histogram from a flow video or ensemble of flow-image pairs. Single-pixel measurement of mean velocity can be obtained from an ensemble of {Omicron}10{sup 3} images. Measurements of higher-order moments of the velocity histogram require spatial averaging (i.e., lower spatial resolution), larger ensembles of images, or a combination of the two. We present single-pixel-resolution PIV measurements of a steady microflow and high-resolution measurements of the velocity histogram of a stationary turbulent flow. This methodology has applications in quantifying velocity statistics in other stochastic flows, e.g., bulk and near-wall boiling

A capillary valve for microfluidic systems.

Microfluidic systems are becoming increasingly complicated as the number of applications grows. The use of microfluidic systems for chemical and biological agent detection, for example, requires that a given sample be subjected to many process steps, which requires microvalves to control the position and transport of the sample. Each microfluidic application has its own specific valve requirements and this has precipitated the wide variety of valve designs reported in the literature. Each of these valve designs has its strengths and weaknesses. The strength of the valve design proposed here is its simplicity, which makes it easy to fabricate, easy to actuate, and easy to integrate with a microfluidic system. It can be applied to either gas phase or liquid phase systems. This novel design uses a secondary fluid to stop the flow of the primary fluid in the system. The secondary fluid must be chosen based on the type of flow that it must stop. A dielectric fluid must be used for a liquid phase flow driven by electroosmosis, and a liquid with a large surface tension should be used to stop a gas phase flow driven by a weak pressure differential. Experiments were carried out investigating certain critical functions of the design. These experiments verified that the secondary fluid can be reversibly moved between its 'valve opened' and 'valve closed' positions, where the secondary fluid remained as one contiguous piece during this transport process. The experiments also verified that when Fluorinert is used as the secondary fluid, the valve can break an electric circuit. It was found necessary to apply a hydrophobic coating to the microchannels to stop the primary fluid, an aqueous electrolyte, from wicking past the Fluorinert and short-circuiting the valve. A simple model was used to develop valve designs that could be closed using an electrokinetic pump, and re-opened by simply turning the pump off and allowing capillary forces to push the secondary fluid back into its stowed position

Wet scavenging of soluble gases in DC3 deep convective storms using WRF-Chem simulations and aircraft observations

We examine wet scavenging of soluble trace gases in storms observed during the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) field campaign. We conduct high-resolution simulations with the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) of a severe storm in Oklahoma. The model represents well the storm location, size, and structure as compared with Next Generation Weather Radar reflectivity, and simulated CO transport is consistent with aircraft observations. Scavenging efficiencies (SEs) between inflow and outflow of soluble species are calculated from aircraft measurements and model simulations. Using a simple wet scavenging scheme, we simulate the SE of each soluble species within the error bars of the observations. The simulated SEs of all species except nitric acid (HNO_3) are highly sensitive to the values specified for the fractions retained in ice when cloud water freezes. To reproduce the observations, we must assume zero ice retention for formaldehyde (CH_2O) and hydrogen peroxide (H_2O_2) and complete retention for methyl hydrogen peroxide (CH_3OOH) and sulfur dioxide (SO_2), likely to compensate for the lack of aqueous chemistry in the model. We then compare scavenging efficiencies among storms that formed in Alabama and northeast Colorado and the Oklahoma storm. Significant differences in SEs are seen among storms and species. More scavenging of HNO_3 and less removal of CH_3OOH are seen in storms with higher maximum flash rates, an indication of more graupel mass. Graupel is associated with mixed-phase scavenging and lightning production of nitrogen oxides (NO_x), processes that may explain the observed differences in HNO_3 and CH_3OOH scavenging