X-ray Computed Tomography of Flame Structure in Porous Media Burners

X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) measurements are applied to combustion systems to obtain non-invasive threedimensional temperature field measurements at high spatial resolution. X-ray attenuation measurements are obtained using a multi-zone silicon carbide Porous Media Burner (PMB) combusting a radiodense Kr-O2-CH4 mixture. A special beam hardening correction is designed to reduce the nonlinearity of the reconstructed krypton attenuation signal resuling from beam hardening by the burner wall. A statistical reconstruction algorithm is investigated to yield the noise reduction in the reconstruction domain. The ideal gas law is then used to estimate the temperature field using reconstructed krypton attenuation. The results demonstrated the potential of CT in obtaining quantitative, spatially resolved temperature field data within optically inaccessible porous media combustion environments.