Multiplexed Spectroscopy Sensor for Assessing Combustion Instabilities in Jet Engine Augmenters

Recent issues with augmenter performance tests including blow-off and intense combustion dynamics that drive strong acoustic waves have necessitated new augmenter designs. In order to validate new concepts, quantitative combustion diagnostics will be required to assess the effect of design alterations. Zolo Technologies, Inc., cooperating with Professor Ron Hanson's group in the High Temperature Gasdynamics Laboratory at Stanford University, proposes a combustion diagnostic sensor system that will be capable of providing the necessary data to validate new augmenter design concepts. The multiplexed spectroscopy sensor (MSS) can monitor combustion parameters such as temperature, temperature non-uniformity, flow velocity, CO2, CO, H2O, O2, and unburned fuel concentration using a fiber-coupled tunable diode laser (TDLAS) system at data acquisition rates of, at least, 100 kHz. The proposed sensor is similar in concept to, but substantively different from, MSS sensors that Zolo and Stanford have demonstrated for SCRAMJET diagnostics at the Wright-Patterson AFB and for application to combustion optimization at coal-fired electric utility boilers.