Nonintrusive measurements of the optical properties of soot at visible wavelengths (351.2–800.0 nm) were completed for soot in the overfire region of large (2–7 kW) buoyant turbulent diffusion flames burning in still air at standard temperature and pressure, where soot properties are independent of position and characteristic flame residence time for a particular fuel. Soot from flames fueled with gaseous (acetylene, ethylene, propylene, and butadiene) and liquid (benzene, cyclohexane, toluene, and n-heptane) hydrocarbon fuels were studied. Scattering and extinction measurements were interpreted to find soot optical properties using the Rayleigh-Debye-Gans/polydisperse-fractal-aggregate theory after establishing that this theory provided good predictions of scattering patterns over the present test range. Effects of fuel type on soot optical properties were comparable to experimental uncertainties. Dimensionless extinction coefficients were relatively independent of wavelength for wavelengths of 400–800 nm and yielded a mean value of 8.4 in good agreement with earlier measurements. Present measurements of the refractive index function for absorption, Em, were in good agreement with earlier independent measurements of Dalzell and Sarofim and Stagg and Charalampopoulos. Present values of the refractive index function for scattering, Fm, however, only agreed with these earlier measurements for wavelengths of 400–550 nm but otherwise increased with increasing wavelength more rapidly than the rest. The comparison between present and earlier measurements of the real and imaginary parts of the complex refractive index was similar to Em and Fm.[S0022-1481(00)02203-9]

Extinction and scattering properties at wavelengths of 250–5200 nm were studied for soot emitted from buoyant turbulent diffusion flames in the long residence time regime where soot properties are independent of position in the overfire region and characteristic flame residence times. Flames burning in still air and fueled with gas (acetylene, ethylene, propane, and propylene) and liquid (benzene, toluene, cyclohexane, and n-heptane) hydrocarbon fuels were considered. Measured scattering patterns and ratios of total scattering/absorption cross sections were in good agreement with predictions based on the Rayleigh-Debye-Gans (RDG) scattering approximation in the visible. Measured depolarization ratios were roughly correlated by primary particle size parameter, suggesting potential for completing RDG methodology needed to make soot scattering predictions as well as providing a nonintrusive way to measure primary soot particle diameters. Measurements of dimensionless extinction coefficients were in good agreement with earlier measurements for similar soot populations and were independent of fuel type and wavelength except for reduced values as the near ultraviolet was approached. The ratios of the scattering/absorption refractive index functions were independent of fuel type within experimental uncertainties and were in good agreement with earlier measurements. The refractive index function for absorption was similarly independent of fuel type but was larger than earlier reflectometry measurements in the infrared. Ratios of total scattering/absorption cross sections were relatively large in the visible and near infrared, with maximum values as large as 0.9 and with values as large as 0.2 at 2000 nm, suggesting greater potential for scattering from soot particles to affect flame radiation properties than previously thought.

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The shapes (luminous flame boundaries) of round luminous nonbuoyant soot-containing hydrocarbon/air laminar jet diffusion flames at microgravity were found from color video images obtained on orbit in the Space Shuttle Columbia. Test conditions included ethylene-and propane-fueled flames burning in still air at an ambient temperature of 300 K, ambient pressures of 35-130 kPa, initial jet diameters of 1.6 and 2.7 mm, and jet exit Reynolds numbers of 45-170. Present test times were 100-200 s and yielded steady axisymmetric flames that were close to the laminar smoke point (including flames both emitting and not emitting soot) with luminous flame lengths of 15-63 mm. The present soot-containing flames had larger luminous flame lengths than earlier ground-based observations having similar burner configurations: 40% larger than the luminous flame lengths of soot-containing low gravity flames observed using an aircraft (K.C-135) facility due to reduced effects of accelerative disturbances and unsteadiness; roughly twice as large as the luminous flame lengths of sootcontaining normal gravity flames due to the absence of effects of buoyant mixing and roughly twice as large as the luminous flame lengths of soot-free low gravity flames observed using drop tower facilities due to the presence of soot luminosity and possible reduced effects of unsteadiness. Simplified expressions to estimate the luminous flame boundaries of round nonbuoyant laminar jet diffusion flames were obtained from the classical analysis of Spalding (1979); this approach provided successful correlations of flame shapes for both soot-free and soot-containing flames, except when the soot-containing flames were in the opened-tip configuration that is reached at fuel flow rates near and greater than the laminar smoke point fuel flow rate.