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Kearney, Sean Patrick

Publications and source records attributed to Kearney, Sean Patrick.

17 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Evolution of titanium particle combustion in potassium perchlorate and air

Understanding titanium particle combustion processes is critical not only for characterizing existing pyrotechnic systems but also for creating new igniter designs. In order to characterize titanium particle combustion processes, morphologies, and temperatures, simultaneous spatially-resolved electric field holography and imaging pyrometry techniques were used to capture post-ignition data at up to 7 kHz. Due to the phase and thermal distortions present in the combustion cloud, traditional digital in-line holography techniques fail to capture accurate data. Here in this work, electric field holography techniques are used in order to cancel distortions and capture the three-dimensional spatial locations and diameters of the particles. In order to estimate the projected surface temperatures of the titanium particles, an imaging pyrometry method that ratios emission at 750 and 850 nm is utilized. Using these diagnostics, joint statistics are collected for particle size, morphology, velocity, and temperature. Results show that, early in the combustion process, the titanium particles are primarily oxidized by potassium perchlorate inside the igniter cup, resulting in projected surface temperatures near 3000 K. Later in the process, the particles interact with ambient air, resulting in lower surface temperatures around 2400 K and the formation of flame zones. These results are consistent with adiabatic flame temperature predictions as well as particle morphology observations of a titanium core with a TiO 2 surface. Late stage particle expansion, star fragmentation, and molten droplet breakup events are also observed using the time-resolved morphology and temperature diagnostics. These results illustrate the different stages of titanium particle combustion in pyrotechnic environments, which can be used to inform improvements in next-generation igniters.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2014

Hybrid fs/ps rotational CARS temperature and oxygen measurements in the product gases of canonical flat flames

A hybrid fs/ps pure-rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) scheme is systematically evaluated over a wide range of flame conditions in the product gases of two canonical flat-flame burners. Near-transform-limited, broadband femtosecond pump and Stokes pulses impulsively prepare a rotational Raman coherence, which is later probed using a high-energy, frequency-narrow picosecond beam generated by the second-harmonic bandwidth compression scheme that has recently been demonstrated for rotational CARS generation in H 2 /air flat flames. The measured spectra are free of collision effects and nonresonant background and can be obtained on a single-shot basis at 1 kHz. The technique is evaluated for temperature/oxygen measurements in near-adiabatic H 2 /air flames stabilized on the Hencken burner for equivalence ratios of φ = 0.20–1.20. Thermometry is demonstrated in hydrocarbon/air products for φ = 0.75–3.14 in premixed C 2 H 4 /air flat flames on the McKenna burner. Reliable spectral fitting is demonstrated for both shot-averaged and single-laser-shot data using a simple phenomenological model. Measurement accuracy is benchmarked by comparison to adiabatic-equilibrium calculations for the H 2 /air flames, and by comparison with nanosecond CARS measurements for the C 2 H 4 /air flames. Quantitative accuracy comparable to nanosecond rotational CARS measurements is observed, while the observed precision in both the temperature and oxygen data is extraordinarily high, exceeding nanosecond CARS, and on par with the best published thermometric precision by femtosecond vibrational CARS in flames, and rotational femtosecond CARS at low temperature. Threshold levels of signal-to-noise ratio to achieve 1–2% precision in temperature and O 2 /N 2 ratio are identified. Our results show that pure-rotational fs/ps CARS is a robust and quantitative tool when applied across a wide range of flame conditions spanning lean H 2 /air combustion to fuel-rich sooting hydrocarbon flames.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2014

Ultrafast Laser Diagnostics for Energetic-Material Ignition Mechanisms: Tools for Physics-Based Model Development.

We present the results of an LDRD project to develop diagnostics to perform fundamental measurements of material properties during shock compression of condensed phase materials at micron spatial scales and picosecond time scales. The report is structured into three main chapters, which each focus on a different diagnostic devel opment effort. Direct picosecond laser drive is used to introduce shock waves into thin films of energetic and inert materials. The resulting laser - driven shock properties are probed via Ultrafast Time Domain Interferometry (UTDI), which can additionally be used to generate shock Hugoniot data in tabletop experiments. Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is developed as a temperature diagnostic. A transient absorption spectroscopy setup has been developed to probe shock - induced changes during shock compressio n. UTDI results are presented under dynamic, direct - laser - drive conditions and shock Hugoniots are estimated for inert polystyrene samples and for the explosive hexanitroazobenzene, with results from both Sandia and Lawrence Livermore presented here. SRS a nd transient absorption diagnostics are demonstrated on static thin - film samples, and paths forward to dynamic experiments are presented.

Kearney, Sean Patrick↗