High-Fidelity Diagnostics of Aerosols and Vapors at High Temperatures and Pressures

There is a need to improve the understanding of physical and chemical processes involved in the evolution of chemical warfare agent (CWA) simulant aerosols and vapors that are interacting with combustion, deflagration, and detonation products. However, the measurement of aerosols and vapors is very challenging because of limited knowledge of the photophysics at varying temperatures and pressures, spatial scales that span nm to cm, time scales from ns to ms, and 3D multiphase phenomena. The proposed Phase I and Phase II work will develop and transition high-fidelity diagnostics of simulant aerosols and vapors at high temperatures and pressures through five innovations that overcome these critical challenges. These include (1) differentiation of CWA simulant aerosol and vapor signals that are below the resolution limit of the detection system, (2) improved photophysical understanding of potential CWA simulant tracers at relevant temperatures and pressures, (3) measurement rates up to 2 MHz using burst-mode laser and high-speed camera technologies, (4) detection of high-speed 3D fields using a wide-angle reflective-plenoptic (WARP) imaging system, and (5) a compact, turnkey laser and integrated imaging system that can be developed into a commercial instrument for rapid characterization of simulant aerosols and vapors.