Sensors (Jun 2010)

A Compact Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectrometer to Monitor CO2 at 2.7 µm Wavelength in Hypersonic Flows

  • Raphäel Vallon,
  • Jacques Soutadé,
  • Jean-Luc Vérant,
  • Jason Meyers,
  • Sébastien Paris,
  • Ajmal Mohamed

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/s100606081
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 6
pp. 6081 – 6091

Abstract

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Since the beginning of the Mars planet exploration, the characterization of carbon dioxide hypersonic flows to simulate a spaceship’s Mars atmosphere entry conditions has been an important issue. We have developed a Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectrometer with a new room-temperature operating antimony-based distributed feedback laser (DFB) diode laser to characterize the velocity, the temperature and the density of such flows. This instrument has been tested during two measurement campaigns in a free piston tunnel cold hypersonic facility and in a high enthalpy arc jet wind tunnel. These tests also demonstrate the feasibility of mid-infrared fiber optics coupling of the spectrometer to a wind tunnel for integrated or local flow characterization with an optical probe placed in the flow.

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