Jun Kojima

Ohio Aerospace Institute, Brook Park, Ohio 

David Fischer

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

High-Speed Linear Raman Spectroscopy for

Instability Analysis of a Bluff Body Flame

NASA/TM—2013-217832

January 2013
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Jun Kojima

Ohio Aerospace Institute, Brook Park, Ohio 

David Fischer

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

High-Speed Linear Raman Spectroscopy for

Instability Analysis of a Bluff Body Flame

NASA/TM—2013-217832

January 2013

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135
Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge financial support by the Supersonics and 

Subsonic Fixed Wing projects under NASA Fundamental Aeronautics. 

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Available electronically at http://www.sti.nasa.gov

This work was sponsored by the Fundamental Aeronautics Program 

at the NASA Glenn Research Center.

Level of Review: This material has been technically reviewed by technical management. 

This report contains preliminary findings, 

subject to revision as analysis proceeds.
NASA/TM—2013-217832 1

High-Speed Linear Raman Spectroscopy for

Instability Analysis of a Bluff Body Flame

Jun Kojima

Ohio Aerospace Institute

Brook Park, Ohio 44142

David Fischer

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135

Abstract

We report a high-speed laser diagnostics technique based on point-wise linear Raman spectroscopy 

for measuring the frequency content of a CH4-air premixed flame stabilized behind a circular bluff body. 

The technique, which primarily employs a Nd:YLF pulsed laser and a fast image-intensified CCD 

camera, successfully measures the time evolution of scalar parameters (N2, O2, CH4, and H2O) in the 

vortex-induced flame instability at a data rate of 1 kHz. Oscillation of the V-shaped flame front is 

quantified through frequency analysis of the combustion species data and their correlations. This 

technique promises to be a useful diagnostics tool for combustion instability studies.

Introduction

A bluff body flame presents a unique condition for studying flame holding and vortex-flame 

interactions, which are fundamentally important to many practical combustion devices including 

industrial boilers and high-speed propulsion (e.g., ramjet) engines (Refs. 1 and 2). The dynamics of 

vortex-induced instabilities in reacting flows are significantly altered from that in nonreacting flows, 

known as a von Kármán vortex street (Refs. 3 and 4). This phenomenon is primarily due to a steep 

density gradient in the thin flame front and sudden gas expansion toward the hot side. The unsteady 

nature of the phenomenon is often considered as a fundamental subject for computer combustion code 

validation studies such as large-eddy simulations (Ref. 5). Local flame extinction and blow-off are also 

common subjects that have brought increasing attention toward bluff body flames (Refs. 1 and 2). 

Flow visualization is probably the most popular experimental approach to understanding the complex 

flow structure behind a bluff body. Various techniques, such as schlieren photography and particle image 

velocimetry (PIV), have made significant contributions in this area (Refs. 2, 6 to 8). However, since the 

combustion flow involves rapid chemical reaction and heat transfer along with the vortex-shedding 

process, time- and space-resolved measurements of combustion species and temperature are essential. 

Planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) imaging of minor species such as OH has served as a powerful 

tool to visualize flame structure (Ref. 9). Raman spectroscopy is also a highly popular method in this area 

of diagnostics (Refs. 10 and 11). Nonlinear Raman techniques such as stimulated Raman spectroscopy or 

coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) (Refs. 12 to 14) provide higher signal intensity and, 

consequently, better accuracy compared to linear (or spontaneous) Raman techniques, which must work 

with inherently weaker signals and thus require much higher laser excitation power. On the other hand, 

linear Raman techniques have a major advantage over nonlinear techniques in that they are capable of 

simultaneously measuring multiple major species and temperature in the combustion flame with a single 

laser frequency and with a diagnostic apparatus that is much simpler (Refs. 11, 15 to 17). Also, the fact 

that spontaneous scattering is linearly proportional to the molecular number density and hence the 

pressure in combustion systems is useful in practice.
NASA/TM—2013-217832 2

A logical progression in capturing such unsteady combustion behavior is an increase in the temporal 

sampling rate of the diagnostic system (Refs. 18 to 25). To this end, we have explored the development of 

a high-speed laser diagnostics system that operates at a sample rate of 1 kHz or greater. A series of 

important efforts with short-pulse CARS has been reported in this area (Refs. 26 to 28). In general, there 

is a trade-off in high-speed laser diagnostics between data quality (uncertainty), data rate, dimensions of 

measurement volume (point-wise versus planar), and number of scalars measured (single or multiple). 

From our point of view, the data produced by any of these diagnostic methods complement each other 

when the measurement strategy is well planned and conducted. Our approach, which we describe herein, 

is to employ a kilohertz-rate, point-wise linear Raman spectroscopy system to simultaneously analyze the 

temporal behavior of multiple scalars and their interactions. It is critical to measure combustion species 

and variables indicative of temperature at the same time, since they are directly related to local kinematic 

viscosity and reaction rate of the fluid in the wake, which are very useful in investigating instability near 

the shear layer.

Experimental

Bluff Body V-Flame 

Vortex shedding dynamics can be studied in many different configurations with various types of bluff 

body shapes and dimensions over a wide range of Reynolds number. In this experiment we used a circular 

cylinder (steel rod), 6 mm in diameter, as a bluff body to stabilize a low-speed flame as shown in 

Figure 1(a) and (b). The rod was placed approximately 15 mm above a honeycomb flow channel (known 

as Hencken burner), which generated a homogenized stream of methane gas and air over a 645.2 mm2

square area (actual open area 44 percent). The flow rates of the air and the methane fuel were 31 liter/min 

and 2.9 liter/min, respectively. The Reynolds number was estimated to be Re = 780 based on the cylinder 

diameter and the mean velocity, 2.0 m/s, which was calculated from the total gas flow rate and the open 

area. Upon ignition, a V-shaped fuel-lean (equivalence ratio Φ = 0.89) CH4-air premixed flame (Ref. 29)

was held to the rod while the von Karman vortex-like wake intrinsically introduced a certain order of 

oscillation to the thin flame front. Considering the theory of premixed laminar flames, the flame front in 

our experiment can be seen as a “divider” between the cold unburned mixture and the hot combustion 

products as illustrated in Figure 1(a). When the flame front fluctuates in space, such spatial movement can 

be observed through the temporal dynamics at a fixed point, i.e., the probe volume (see the focused laser 

beam in Figure 1(b)). As seen in Figure 1(b), the V-flame was principally two-dimensional due to a 

length of cylinder over the honeycomb burner (>25 mm) and the probe volume was placed approximately 

half way into the full depth of the flame.

High-Speed Raman Diagnostics

Figure 2 schematically shows the apparatus for demonstrating high-speed linear Raman spectroscopy 

in the V-flame. A diode-pumped Nd:YLF laser provided vertically-polarized 527-nm pulses at a 

repetition rate of 1 kHz (30 mJ/pulse, 210 ns pulse duration, 3 mm beam diameter). The laser beam was 

focused into the flame with a 700 mm focal length lens. A right-angle folding prism and lens 

(f = 400 mm) redirected the incident beams back into the probe volume, nearly doubling the excitation 

energy. The Raman scattering signal from the probe volume was collected by a 100 mm focal-length 

achromatic lens, oriented 90° to the incident beams. Another achromatic lens and retro reflector nearly 

doubled the collection solid angle of the primary lens, which was mounted back-to-back to a third 

achromatic lens that imaged the probe volume onto an optical silica fiber assembly for input to a 

spectrograph. The optical fiber used in this experiment was a bundle of seven 100 μm core (0.22 NA) in a 

close-pack geometry with 400 μm effective diameter on one end (collection lens side), while the distal 

end was configured as a 1 by 7 linear array aligned with the slit axis of the spectrograph. The 

measurement volume was approximately 400 μm long by 400 μm in diameter. The collection fibers 
NASA/TM—2013-217832 3

Figure 1.—(a) Bluff body flame (V-flame) experiment configuration. 

(b) A direct photograph of the V-flame with interrogating Nd:YLF 

pulsed laser.
NASA/TM—2013-217832 4

Figure 2.—Experimental apparatus showing the high-speed laser Raman diagnostics system, 

employing a Nd:YLF pulsed laser (527 nm, 1 kHz repetition rate) and a fast image intensified 

CCD camera (ICCD) coupled with a lens spectrograph. RR: retro-reflector; BD: beam dump.

guided the scattered light to a f/1.8 holographic imaging lens spectrograph equipped with long-wave pass 

edge filter (535.4 nm) and a volume-transmission grating having 17 nm/mm average reciprocal linear 

dispersion, and fitted with an image-intensified charge coupled device (ICCD) camera. The camera 

employed a high-quantum-efficiency Gen III filmless image intensifier (18 mm in diameter) with fastdecay P46 phosphor (<2 μs decay time). The gate width of the image intensifier was set at the laser pulse 

duration. In order to minimize the readout time and achieve the spectral (frame) rate of 1 kHz, we 

modified the original 1024 by 256 CCD sensor in software to have an active area of 500 by 30 pixels 

(each pixel being 26 μm on edge) with 16-bit, 2 MHz digitization while ensuring the necessary spectral 

range. The spectrograph and the ICCD were optimally assembled to capture a spectrum with a relatively 

low resolution (ca. 0.38 nm/pixel) over the range from 500 to 690 nm for combustion species detection.

Results and Discussion

Time-Series Scalar Data 

The Raman measurement was made at the probe volume for a period of 30 sec, which yielded 30,000 

Raman spectra for a single run. Figure 3 shows the distinct difference between typical single-shot spectra 

measured on each side of the premixed flame front, i.e., the hot and cold sides. The spectrum of the hot 

gas is identified by an intense pure-rotational N2 band around 535 nm and peaks in the vibrational CO2

and H2O bands around 580 and 657 nm, respectively. The rotational N2 band is known to have excellent 

sensitivity to flame temperature according to our previous work (Ref. 30). In general, the higher the peak 

of the rotational band in this measurement, the higher the temperature of the gas that is present. The 

intensity of the rotational N2 band has, therefore, a semilinear relationship to local temperature. Since CO2

and H2O are the major combustion products, it is a clear indicator of the burned gas. In contrast, the 

spectrum of cold gas has three large peaks from air (oxygen and nitrogen) and fuel CH4. The vibrational 

N2 band at 607 nm in air has a greater peak height due to the vibrational population at room temperature.
NASA/TM—2013-217832 5

Figure 3.—Single-shot spontaneous (linear) Raman scattering spectra in the CH4-air 

premixed V flame, showing vibrational bands of the major combustion species and a 

pure-rotational nitrogen band. Dotted line (blue): cold unburned fuel/air mixture. Solid 

line (red): hot combustion gas. 

The vibrational CH4 band around 630 nm is visible only in the cold fuel-air mixture as the molecule is 

quickly broken down in the preheating stage or the earliest stages of the combustion reaction process.

To quantify the oscillating flame front, we first performed super-pixel integrations (i.e., binning) of 

the above-mentioned Raman bands on a single-shot basis and plotted them as a function of time. The 

super-pixel region for each band was defined so there was minimum uncertainty from background noise.

Figure 4 shows temporal variations of the four Raman bands, each of which represents a molecular 

species or a scalar, over a period of 700 ms (700 shots). Notice that the scalar signals are interrelated 

implicitly, as they responded collectively to large or small movements of the flame front. By looking at 

the peak locations and inter-arrival times, it is easily seen that there is a proportional relationship between 

the O2 signal and the CH4 signal as a result of the co-existence of air and the fuel in unburnt reactants.

The CH4 signal (i.e., concentration) exhibits more frequent (fine) variations than the O2 signal in several 

instances of flame front passing. This is seemingly a characteristic behavior of the CH4 responding to the 

vortex-flame interaction, in which spatial profiles of the O2 and CH4 can be altered from the elementary 

laminar flame structure (Ref. 31). The profile thickness of the CH4 is 20 percent thinner than the O2 based 

on the maximum gradient, which indicates that the CH4 may be slightly more sensitive to local flame 

dynamics and topology. Note that the O2 signal level does not reach zero even when the CH4 has zero 

concentration because the combustion is under a fuel-lean condition and thus has excess oxygen. An 

apparent inverse motion of the rotational N2 signal against the O2 and the CH4 is also noticeable. This is 

well understood by the fact that the rotational N2 signal is a strong temperature indicator (Ref. 30) and 

that in premixed combustion the fuel consumption rate is directly related to the heat release and thus the 

resulting flame temperature (Ref. 31). The signal variation of H2O, a combustion product, supports these 

ideas by positively following the temperature variations, although the signal has smaller visibility due to 

the weaker scattering cross-section.
NASA/TM—2013-217832 6

Figure 4.—Time-series variations (oscillation) of combustion species near the flame front. Data not calibrated. 

Fluctuations in rotational N2 are strongly correlated with temperature fluctuations, which are inversely 

correlated with fuel and air concentrations.

Instability Analysis

We now attempt to quantify the underlying temporal variation (frequency components) of the flame 

instability behind the circular bluff body. Figure 5 shows the discrete Fourier transforms of the scalar 

time-domain signals, computed with a fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. Considering the data 

sampled at 1 kHz, the maximum frequency our system can resolve is limited to <500 Hz. This is well 

within our region of interest because the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability frequency that is associated with 

the shear layer of our bluff body flow in this experiment was estimated to be 143 Hz (Ref. 2). This 

frequency reasonably agrees with the tail end of the amplitude spectrum of each species in Figure 5.

According to the amplitude spectra, we found three characteristic frequencies, located at approximately at 

5, 27, and 55 Hz, that are almost universal to all of the scalars that we measured. These three frequency 

components suggest that the wake behind the bluff body caused a series of interactions downstream and 

generated different modes of instability. The familiar sinuous wake of a bluff body, typically led by 

enveloped streamlines over the smaller vortices, is probably responsible for the lowest fundamental 

frequency (~5 Hz) of the present flame instability. It is also reasonable to find that these three modes of 

frequencies are lower than the estimated highest frequency of von Kármán instability, i.e., 70 Hz because 

any temperature rise due to combustion reaction should increase the kinematic viscosity of the fluid thus 

lower the characteristic frequency.

To gain more insight into the instability dynamics, we applied cross-correlation analyses to the timeseries data. Figure 6 shows cross-correlations between the CH4 and the O2; and H2O along with an autocorrelation of the CH4. Firstly, the CH4 auto-correlation elaborates or adds to the basic findings mentioned 

above. The time lag (half width of the full maximum) of the fall of the first peak from 1.0 to almost 0.2 is 

approximately 8 to 10 ms, which represents the width of narrow (intensity) peaks in Figure 4. This 
NASA/TM—2013-217832 7

Figure 5.—Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analysis of the time-series scalar data. Note 

that there are three fundamental frequencies centered around 5, 27, and 55 Hz. 

Figure 6.—Auto- and cross-correlation of temporal fluctuations of the combustion species. 

Dashed line (blue): auto-correlation of CH4; Solid line (red): cross-correlation between 

CH4 and O2; Dotted line (green): cross-correlation between CH4 and H2O.
NASA/TM—2013-217832 8

timescale is a product of the flame front thickness and the flame propagation speed at the prove volume 

and detailed discussion would be out of the scope of this paper. The consecutive two peaks in the autocorrelation plot at the time lags of 18 ms, and 36 ms are directly related to the characteristic instability 

frequencies of 55 Hz (= 1000/18), and 27 Hz (= 1000/36), respectively. Secondly, the cross-correlation of 

CH4 and O2 shows a positive correlation, having almost identical feature with the CH4 auto-correlation.

This is another way of confirming the co-existence and similar behavior of the two gases in unburnt 

reactants of the premixed flame. Finally, an inverse temporal correlation with little phase shift found in 

the CH4-H2O cross-correlation plot is supporting evidence that our bluff body flame is in the so-called 

flamelet regime (Ref. 32). In the flamelet model, a distinct area separation between the unburnt reactants 

and combustion products by a thin flame front is assumed for an ease of computational simulation of 

turbulent flames. Since our instability analysis of the flame front exhibited seesaw-like interrelationships 

between scalar observables in reactants and that in combustion products, the assumption of thin flame 

front seems reasonable.

Conclusion

In response to the need for advanced experimental techniques that can capture the nature of instability 

dynamics in combustion, we have developed a high-speed laser Raman spectroscopy system. The 

diagnostics system consisted of a pulsed Nd:YLF DPSS laser and a customized fast image intensified 

CCD camera, which achieved a temporal sampling rate of 1 kHz with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

We demonstrated the diagnostics technique in a fuel-lean CH4/air V-flame stabilized behind a circular 

bluff body (Re = 780), which exhibited a characteristic oscillation at the flame front as a result of vortexshedding. The temporally- and spatially-resolved measurement process successfully captured time series 

data of four scalar observables (N2, O2, CH4, and H2O) in the reacting flow. The temporal variations of the 

scalar signals indicated oscillating movements of the flame front. We observed a positive correlation 

between the fuel (CH4) and oxidizer (O2) fluctuations, while a negative correlation was found between the 

reactants and the combustion product (H2O). We also observed that the thermal fluctuation between the 

low and high temperatures, indicated by the pure rotational N2 signal, was correlated strongly with the 

temporal behavior of the reactants. These experimental observations confirmed that the laminar flame 

front can be viewed as a thin, high-gradient boundary between the cold unburned mixture and the hot 

combustion product. This fact, along with the behavior of the cross-correlation functions of the measured 

scalars, supports the assertion that the flamelet model is a primary combustion regime for the current 

flame. In addition, we determined the characteristic frequency components of the combustion instability 

to be 5, 27, and 55 Hz through FFT analysis of the time-series data. This proof-of-concept experiment and 

the subsequent analysis show that high-speed linear Raman spectroscopy holds promise as a diagnostic 

tool for combustion instability studies in more practical environments.

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14. ABSTRACT

We report a high-speed laser diagnostics technique based on point-wise linear Raman spectroscopy for measuring the frequency content of a 

CH4-air premixed flame stabilized behind a circular bluff body. The technique, which primarily employs a Nd:YLF pulsed laser and a fast 

image-intensified CCD camera, successfully measures the time evolution of scalar parameters (N2, O2, CH4, and H2O) in the vortex-induced 

flame instability at a data rate of 1 kHz. Oscillation of the V-shaped flame front is quantified through frequency analysis of the combustion 

species data and their correlations. This technique promises to be a useful diagnostics tool for combustion instability studies.

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