Measuring droplets and droplet clouds is required when studying nozzles and how they work or when modeling the aircraft icing phenomena.
Nozzles are important for turbine engines as fuel injectors in the combustors.
Many droplet and cloud measurement systems are based on light scattering by cloud droplets. Ed Hovenac with Dynacs Engineering, Inc. has developed, in collaboration with Dr. James Lock of Cleveland State University, software for modelling light scattering from a droplet. Example results are shown below. The computed relative total scattered intensity for a droplet in a laser beam is depicted in the image.