Droplet Characterization Based on the Simulated Secondary Rainbows

The droplet size, size distribution, refractive index, and temperature can be measured simultaneously by the rainbow technique. In the present work, the rainbow scattering diagram for a spherical droplet in the secondary rainbow region is simulated by the use of the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory. For achieving high spatial resolution in denser droplet sprays, a focused Gaussian beam is used. For droplet characterization, different inversion algorithms are investigated, which includes trough-trough (θmin1 and θmin2) method and inflection-inflection (θinf1 and θinf2) method. For the trough-trough algorithm, the absolute error of the refractive index is between −6.4 × 10−4 and 1.7 × 10−4, and the error of the droplet radius is only between −0.55% and 1.77%. For the inflection-inflection algorithm, the maximum absolute error of the inverted refractive index is less than −1.1 × 10−3. The error of the droplet radius is between −0.75% and 5.67%.