Calibration techniques for quantitative NO measurement using Laser-Induced Fluorescence

Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) is an essential optical diagnostic technique for the high-resolution and low-uncertainty measurement of combustion species concentration in a variety of applications and conditions. Two different calibration techniques are explored in this study to obtain quantitative Nitric Oxide (NO) concentration measurements in flames. The first technique, the most employed in the literature, uses the extrapolation of the fluorescence signal from seeded to nascent NO and is only valid under negligible NO reburn conditions. The second technique uses the optical calibration of the experimental setup to relate it to a modelled LIF signal and can be applied regardless of NO reburn. Both of these techniques are explored under two different assumptions: constant and non-constant interfering LIF signal on the NO absorption spectrum. While the former is most often used in the literature, the latter is necessary when the LIF signal from interfering species cannot be distinguished from the NO-LIF signal, especially in high pressure conditions. Hence, a total of four techniques are presented in this work and are found to be in excellent agreement when performed in different flame conditions. The calibration techniques are applied to three lean, atmospheric, laminar, premixed, methane-air flames to explore their field of applicability. Specifically, the study explores the relevance of the techniques in reburn conditions, which occur mostly in high pressure, rich, highly-seeded, or NH${}_3$-containing flames. This study aims to offer the reader a portfolio of calibration techniques to use according to the conditions in which they need to be applied. While this study was carried out measuring NO concentration in a stagnation flame burner, the concepts and equations presented can be transposed to the measurement of other species and to other experimental configurations.