NSF Award
9903624
This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to produce compact, rugged sensors capable of direct, non-intrusive, real-time measurements of chemical concentrations and local temperature in hostile environments such as gas turbine engines and other high- temperature and pressure industrial processes. This would permit greater control and optimization of those processes than is currently possible. Most current sensor technologies must rely on extractive sampling systems that have slow response times, require considerable maintenance and may also complicate interpretation of sensor data. Near-infrared tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) is a rapidly maturing technique for the quantitative determination of trace species concentrations and gas temperature. To date, its use has been limited to measurements in environments at or below 1 atmosphere. However, recent innovations have demonstrated that quantitative TDLAS measurements can be performed at higher pressures (up to 20 atm) and at elevated temperatures. We propose to develop this novel technology to produce an in situ sensor for harsh industrial environments. <br/> The proposed sensor will incorporate near- infrared, room-temperature diode lasers, fiber-optics, and absorption spectroscopy techniques to enable in situ measurements of species concentrations and gas temperature. The fiber-coupled diode-laser sensor will be easy to implement and enable wavelength multiplexing for simultaneous multi-species measurements at multiple locations. The proposed sensor may be applied for real-time in situ measurements of chemical concentrations and gas temperature for monitoring and control of gas turbine combustors, waste incinerators, advanced propulsion systems and other high temperature, high pressure industrial processes.
