Tomography for two-dimensional gas temperature distribution based

on TDLAS
Can Luo1, Yunchu Wang2, Fei Xing*1
1
School of Aerospace Engineering, Xiamen University
Siming South Road, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005, China
2
School of Mathematical Sciences, Xiamen University
Siming South Road, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005, China

ABSTRACT

Based on tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS), the tomography is used to reconstruct the combustion
gas temperature distribution. The effects of number of rays, number of grids, and spacing of rays on the temperature
reconstruction results for parallel ray are researched. The reconstruction quality is proportional to the ray number. The
quality tends to be smoother when the ray number exceeds a certain value. The best quality is achieved when η is
between 0.5 and 1. A virtual ray method combined with the reconstruction algorithms is tested. It is found that virtual ray
method is effective to improve the accuracy of reconstruction results, compared with the original method. The linear
interpolation method and cubic spline interpolation method, are used to improve the calculation accuracy of virtual ray
absorption value. According to the calculation results, cubic spline interpolation is better. Moreover, the temperature
distribution of a TBCC combustion chamber is used to validate those conclusions.
Keywords: TDLAS, ART, laser, tomography, virtual ray, interpolation method

1. INTRODUCTION
Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy is characterized by fast response, sensitivity and low cost. This technique is
able to simultaneously measure temperature, gas concentration and molecular speed, which makes it suitable for
combustion test applications1-4.
TDLAS results in an integrated line-of-sight measurement. However, its low spatial resolution makes it difficult to
apply to more than two-dimensional combustion. To solve this problem, one method is to combine TDLAS with
tomography. Algebraic Reconstruction Technique (ART) proposed by Gordon5 is one of the major algorithms in
tomography, which is widely used because of its better reconstruction performance in cases of incomplete projection
angels and few ray projections. Using ART, Kasyutich6 reconstructed a non-axisymmetric temperature distribution,
which was combined round with rectangular heaters. In the experiment, 5 projection angles were evenly distributed in
circle. There are 11 rays in each angle. Wang7 used four platforms that each rotate a beam from a single laser through an
11° arc, acquiring a data set from all four laser platforms in 100ms to enable observation of dynamic flow events. In the
experiment, a large amount of ray projection increased the difficulty of the experiment. Hyperspectral absorption
spectroscopy developed by Ma8,9 can obtain tomographic images of temperature and species concentration
simultaneously and while reducing the number of required projection measurements.
The number of ray is limited in the experimental measurement, due to space constraints. Therefore, it becomes very
important to improve the accuracy of the algorithm when the number of ray is small. Song10 found that virtual ray
method is effective to improve the accuracy of reconstruction results for the symmetric and non-axisymmetric
temperature distributions. However, its virtual ray grid division is not good, which increases the calculation error of the
edge of the grids, and its interpolation method is common. In this paper, an effective virtual ray grid division is
developed. What’s more, two interpolation methods are used to improve the reconstruction quality of the image. The
ART algorithm is developed by adding uniformity criterion to achieve better reconstruction quality.

*f.xing@xmu.edu.cn; phone +86 130-6303-9116;

Young Scientists Forum 2017, edited by Kunchu Peng, Jianwei Pan, Junhao Chu, Proc. of SPIE
Vol. 10710, 107101H · © 2018 SPIE · CCC code: 0277-786X/18/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.2317520

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 2. THEORY
2.1 Absorption Spectroscopy
Absorption spectroscopy is governed by the Beer-Lambert law

( ) = − =− ( ) ( ) (1)

where and are the incident and transmitted intensities. (cm-1) is the spectral absorption coefficient, (atm) is the
total pressure, is the mole fraction of the absorbing species of interest, ( ) (cm-2atm-1) is the transition line strength,
( ) (cm) is line shape function, approximated by a Voigt function.
The line strength ( ) is calculated
( ) "
ℎ 1 1 ℎ ℎ
( )= ( ) − − × 1 − − [1 − − ] (2)
( )
where (K) is the reference temperature, ℎ is the Planck’s constant, is the speed of light, is the Boltzmann’s
constant, " (cm-1) is the low state energy level, and ( ) is the partition function for the absorbing species.
Combined with Eqs. (1) and (2), the ratio of two transitions is simplified as follows
( ) ( ) ℎ " "
1 1
= = − − − (3)
( ) ( )
is the path integral value of the ray . According to Eqs. (3), the temperature value can be expressed as follows
ℎ " "
−
= " "
(4)
( ) ℎ −
+ +
( )
2.2 Tomographic Image Reconstruction
Computed tomography is the process of capturing the two-dimensional information of an object. In this case, a series of
LOS rays are collected from multiple angles and positions around the object. The ray measurements are then
computationally reconstructed to form a 2D image of the object by ART.
The object is divided to = ∗ square grid points. Each grid point is assumed to be a constant . When a ray
pass through the grids, represents the length that ray crosses to grid point . The measurements of all rays are
abstracted into an equation group
+ + ⋯+ =
+ + ⋯+ =
(5)
⋯ ⋯ ⋯ ⋯
+ +⋯+ =
The formula for solving Eqs. (5) with ART is as follows
( , )
(, ) ( , ) −∑ ,
= + , (6)
∑ ,
(, )
where is 1. is the number of iteration. is the th value obtained by iterating the th row of the system in the th
iteration.
Smoothing criteria are introduced
1
( )= ( − ) (7)
8
∈ ∈

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 3. NUM
MERICAL MODELS
M
A Gaussian Distribution
D F
Function Eqs. (8) is used too create a mod
del of temperaature distributtion, as shown
n in Fig. 1. Inn
this case, = 0, σ = σ .
1 ( − ) 2 ( − )( − ) ( − )
( , )= 2 1− − − + (8))
2(1 − )

Δdgrid

…
…
…
e
in
l
Δd
1 … N
A-2 A
…
Δdline P-2 P

Figure 1. Oriiginal model of

o temperaturee distribution Figgure 2. Paralleel ray distribu
ution
As shown in Fig. 2, parrallel rays are distributed at four angles (--45 , 0 , 450, 900 0
9 0), do not exceed the bou
undaries of thee
grid. ∆ i the length of
is o the grid, which
w is definned as 1. ∆ is the interrval between tthe two rays and keeps thee
same at four angles,
a but vaaries with the number
n of rayy. The ratio is defined as = ∆ /∆ . repreesents the totaal
number of rayy.

4. SIM
MULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Effects of
o number of rays
Using the parrallel projectioon, the model is separated into
i 30×30,20 0×20 and 10×10 grid pointss. When the to otal number of
rays P is 100,, the reconstruucted images at
a each grid arre shown in Fig.
F 3a, b, c. The
T reconstruccted image is much m closer too
the original model
m by increeasing the gridd size. Accordding to Eqs. (5) and (6), thee calculated vvalue is more accurate
a whenn
a grid is passed through byy more rays. Thus,
T the imagge quality of th
he center gridds is better thaan the edge on
nes, because of
more cross-raays.

200

(a) 30 X 30 (b) 20 X 20 I ii

Figure 3. Reconstructed temperature disstribution of diffferent grid sizees

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 In order to assesses the quality of the reconstructed image of the temperature distribution, the normalized average
mean error is defined by
∑ ∑ , − ,
= (9)
∑ ∑ ,

Smaller means better image reconstruction quality. The value of each grid is also closer to the real value. In
contrast, the worse the results.
As shown in Fig. 4, decreases with the increased ray number. As the number of grids increases, drops
and reaches a lower level. The decreases much faster for larger grids number case. tends to be smooth and
close to a constant when the number of rays exceeds 100.

0.18 0.18
0 10*10 o 10*10
0.16 O 20*20 0.16 o 20*20
30*30 + 30*30
0.14 0.14

0.12 0.12

0.1 0.1
>
o 0.08 0.08

0.06 0.06

0.04 0.04

0.02 0.02

00 00
50 100 150 200 250 350 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Total number of rays n

Figure 4. The relationship between the number of rays and Figure 5. The relationship between and
As shown in Fig. 5, in each case, is kept essentially constant at between 0.5 and 1. When exceeds 1,
grows rapidly. It shows that the reconstruction results are the best at between 0.5 and 1.

Figure 6. Virtual ray distribution Figure 7. New virtual ray distribution

4.2 Virtual ray
In fact, since the number of detectors is limited by space, the number of used rays is relatively small, and is a bit big. It
is also shown that the best quality is achieved when is between 0.5 and 1. Therefore, virtual ray is proposed as one of
the solutions to this problem. The interpolation method is used to increase the amount of virtual ray between the real
rays, so as to increase the total number of rays and improving the quality of the reconstruction. As shown in Fig. 6, one
new ray is inserted between and , and re-divided the original area. However, no rays passing through edge

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 of the area using this division, which increases the calculation error. In this work, a reasonable dividing way is
developed, and shown in Fig. 7. The upper part of this figure shows a 10 × 10 grids. Now using 8 rays instead of
original 10 rays to pass through the measured area, the leftmost ray is 1/3 wide from the leftmost region, and the distance
between two rays are 4/3. The bottom half of the figure shows the encrypted mesh and the rays with virtual rays. Two
grids are encrypted to become three grids, and the real rays with virtual rays go through each grid. The resolution ratio
increase from 10 × 10 to 15 × 15 without changing the overall area.
As shown in Fig. 8a, the Gaussian Distribution Function is used to create a model of temperature distribution in
20 × 20 grids case. The reconstructed image of the original grid under projection of real ray is shown in Fig. 8b. When
linear interpolation is used to calculate the virtual A, the reconstructed image of the new grid under real ray and virtual
ray is shown in Fig. 8c. When cubic spline interpolation is used to calculate the virtual A, the reconstructed image of the
new grid under real ray and virtual ray is shown in Fig. 8d. When comparing Fig. 8b to Fig. 8c, 8d, we can see that the
result of increased virtual ray is better.

.,, .0 sa

(a) 20><20 original (b) 20><20 real rays

distribution

,, a

.i 41 4 Oa J es i a

(c) 30X30 linear (d)30X30 cubic spline

interpolation rays interpolation rays

Figure 8. Reconstructed temperature distribution using the virtual ray method

As shown in Table 1, the results are quantified and compared. In addition, the results of original 10 × 10 grids are
compared at the same time. It shows that the more dense the grid is, the better the reconstruction results are. It is found
that the cubic spline interpolation is better than the linear interpolation When comparing the of (c) and (d).
Table 1. in different cases

N
(b) (c) (d)
10 × 10 0.0534 0.0174 0.0098
20 × 20 0.0187 0.0049 0.0037

4.3 Application
In order to verify the reconstructed image effect under the virtual ray in the asymmetric temperature distribution, the temperature
distribution on a section of a TBCC combustion chamber is selected and shown in Fig. 9. The process of reconstruction is the same as
above, described in section 4.2.
The reconstructed images are shown in Fig. 10. The reason for generating Fig. 10b is that the measured area is large and the
number of rays is low. It is concluded that the reconstruction result is improved significantly by increasing virtual rays, as shown in
Fig. 10c, 10d.

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 a. 0

-0 5
1000

1.00

.1 S -0 5 0 OS O5
Y x X

(a) (b)
Figure 9. Temperature distribution of a section of a TBCC combustion chamber

,. , u

(a) 20X20 original (b)20X20 real ways

distribution

OS

3 ;, z .. IS 2

(c) 30 X 30 linear (d)30X30 cubic spline

interpolation rays interpolation rays

Figure 10. Reconstructed images of temperature distribution of a TBCC combustion chamber

Values of are shown in Table 2. When the ray is sufficient, the results meet the above conclusions.
Table 2. in different cases

N
b c d
20 × 20 0.0905 0.0343 0.0353
30 × 30 0.1531 0.0379 0.0311

5. CONCLUSION
In this work, grid division and interpolation methods have been developed in virtual ray to achieve better reconstruction
quality. Gaussian Distribution Function is used to create a model of temperature field. Parallel rays distributed at four
angles pass through the temperature field. ART algorithm and uniformity criterion are used to reconstruct the
temperature field. is calculated in each case to evaluate the reconstruction quality. It is concluded that the
reconstruction quality is proportional to the ray number. The quality tends to be smoother when the ray number exceeds

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 100. The best quality is achieved when is between 0.5 and 1. Virtual ray is applied to improve quality by an effective
grid division. The linear interpolation method and cubic spline interpolation method, are used to improve the calculation
accuracy of virtual ray absorption value. According to the calculation results, cubic spline interpolation is better.

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