Recent Developments and Applications of the Combustion Diagnostics at Bremen Drop Tower

The Bremen drop tower laser diagnostics for microgravity combustion research application has been further developed. These developments, that are either already implemented or in the test phase, are described in detail. Besides the standard capabilities of: OH-LIPF (248 nm) with 250 frames/s picture acquisition; quasi-on-line data transmission via internet; high-speed video image processing; and image data storage on compact disc, the developments concern the following: remote calibration prior to each drop to OH, O2 or NO resonance lines; two-line LIPF thermography (OH-OH) with 125 Hz pulse/frame repetition rate for each line; two species LIPF (e.g. OH - hot O2); on-off resonance LIPF (e.g. for OH detection in a broadband absorbing chemical environment) with 125 Hz pulse/frame repetition rate for each line; and in-capsule Raman-shift to, e.g. aldehyde resonance lines. The application section of the paper describes recent results from applying the laser diagnostics to fuel droplet- and PMMA combustion.