Measurement of gas density and temperature distributions in strongly rotating UF6 using laser-induced fluorescence

A new technique for using Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) signals to measure the distribution of gas density and temperature in strongly rotating UF6 gas is presented. An external pulsed laser is used to excite the rotating UF6 gas, producing an exponentially decaying fluorescence signal. A multi-channel fiber optics system simultaneously collects the fluorescence signals emanating from a number of points in the gas. The signals from each optical channel are digitized and processed to determine the fluorescence signal intensity and decay lifetime at each of the points of observation by means of a least squares fitting process. Gas densities and temperatures are then determined from the intensity and lifetime data. A recently constructed LIF probe system is described and an analysis of the unfolding techniques necessary to process the signal data is presented. Preliminary data, obtained in tests of the probe system in a laboratory rotor, are presented