Improved Refractometer for Measuring Temperatures of Drops

The Dual Rainbow refractometer is an enhanced version of the Rainbow refractometer, which is added to, and extends the capabilities of, a phase Doppler particle analyzer (PDPA). A PDPA utilizes pairs of laser beams to measure individual components of velocity and sizes of drops in a spray. The Rainbow-refractometer addition measures the temperatures of individual drops. The designs of prior versions of the Rainbow refractometer have required substantial modifications of PDPA transmitting optics, plus dedicated lasers as sources of illumination separate from, and in addition to, those needed for PDPA measurements. The enhancement embodied in the Dual Rainbow refractometer eliminates the need for a dedicated laser and confers other advantages as described below. A dedicated laser is no longer needed because the Dual Rainbow refractometer utilizes one of the pairs of laser beams already present in a PDPA. Hence, the design of the Dual Rainbow refractometer simplifies the task of upgrading PDPA hardware to enable measurement of temperature. Furthermore, in a PDPA/Dual Rainbow refractometer system, a single argon-ion laser with three main wavelengths can be used to measure the temperatures, sizes, and all three components of velocity (in contradistinction to only two components of velocity in a prior PDPA/Rainbow refractometer system). In order to enable the Dual Rainbow refractometer to utilize a pair of PDPA laser beams, it was necessary to (1) find a location for the refractometer receiver, such that the combined rainbow patterns of two laser beams amount to a pattern identical to that of a single beam, (2) adjust the polarization of the two beams to obtain the strongest rainbow pattern, and (3) find a location for the PDPA receiver to obtain a linear relationship between the measured phase shift and drop size.