Focused-image holography as a dense-spray diagnostic

The denser regions of sprays need to be probed for us to understand further the basic phenomena of the breakup of a bulk liquid into droplets and the subsequent drop dynamics. The instruments currently available to spray diagnosticians, the Malvern spray analyzer and the phase/Doppler particle analyzer, cannot be used in the denser regions of the spray and in regions where ligaments or nonspherical droplets exist. Holography, as applied in the past, has permitted the interrogation of nonspherical drops but in general has been applied to droplet-dominated dilute regions of sprays. Using a focused-image holographic system, with the advantages of an imaging lens and side lighting, we can probe highly complex regions of sprays, such as those that include bubble explosions and complex ligament formation at the nozzle exit. In this paper we present components of a focused-image holographic system for spray analysis, advantages and limitations of that system, and how the longitudinal magnification varies as a funct on of the length of the object along the optical path.