Supercontinuum based absorption spectrometer for cycle-resolved multiparameter measurements in a rapid compression machine

A broadband supercontinuum (SC) based absorption spectrometer capable of cycle-resolved multiparameter measurements at internal combustion (IC) engine conditions is presented. Three parameters, temperature, pressure and water mole fraction, were extracted from broadband near-infrared H2O absorption spectra, spanning the wavelength-range from 1340 to 1405.5 nm, which exhibits a large number of specific H2O transitions. The spectrometer is based on spatial domain detection and features a near-infrared line scan camera as a detector. Measurements were performed during a compression cycle of a rapid compression machine comprising a pressure and temperature range from 2.5 to 65 bar and 300 to 900 K, respectively. With the new spectrometer, we are for the first time, based on the authors' knowledge, able to perform measurements based on SC radiation over a complete compression and expansion stroke at measurement rates up to 50 kHz. A detailed overview is provided about the best match algorithm between theory and experiments, including parameters from two different spectral databases, namely the Barber-Tennyson database (BT2) and HITRAN2012. The results indicate that spectral broadening effects are not properly described by theory, especially at pressure levels exceeding 20 bar, which culminates in a clear underestimation of the derived pressure data by SC absorption spectroscopy. Nevertheless, temperature can be determined accurately by performing a three-parameter fit based on water mole fraction, temperature, and pressure. In contrast, making use of pressure transducer data as look-up values and varying only temperature and H2O mole fraction to find the best match leads to a clear overestimation of temperature at elevated pressures. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America