Patent ID: 6049382
Filing Date: 2000-04-11
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
A method for characterizing a spray made of spherical particles, said method comprising:providing a laser beam which is made to coincide with an axis of a cartesian coordinate system contained in a measurement plane perpendicular to a spray axis;recording, with a first optical system, scattering activity generated by the particles that are located at the intersection of the laser beam and an object volume of the first optical system, the first optical system being disposed at an angle which forms approximately a 90.degree. angle with respect to a laser beam propagation direction;recording, with a second optical system, the optical attenuation suffered by the laser beam after passing through the measurement plane;coupling the optical systems to photodetectors and a signal processor;generating electrical signals proportional to the scattering activity and optical attenuation, the generating being performed by the signal processor;processing the electrical signals to obtain a tomographic map of the magnitude N.sub.D D.sub.20.sup.2, where N.sub.D is a spray particle density of the spray and D.sub.20.sup.2 is the square of the spray average quadratic diameter of the spray.