Development of a two-line DLAS sensor for liquid film measurement

The simultaneous measurements of multiple parameters (film thickness, temperature, etc.) of the liquid films are crucial for the design and optimization of relevant industrial processes. Here, a sensor based on diode-laser absorption spectroscopy (DLAS) was developed to simultaneously measure liquid water film thicknesses and temperatures by combining two diode lasers at different wavenumber positions, 6718.2 cm^-1 and 7040.8 cm^-1. Serious beam steering effects can be avoided by adding an integrating sphere to improve the performance of the sensor for the investigations of dynamic films. The measurement accuracies of this sensor were firstly validated by a calibration tool with known film thicknesses and temperatures. It revealed that the averaged deviations between the measured film thicknesses/temperatures and the corresponding known parameters were 4.58% and 1.34%, respectively. The sensor was then employed to study liquid film evaporation processes on a horizontal quartz glass plate. The imaging method and the thermocouple were simultaneously employed to obtain the film thicknesses and temperatures to compare with the DLAS results. It showed that the average evaporation rates of the liquid films were 0.34/0.41/0.57 μm/s at different temperatures (340/360/390 K) of the heat gun outlet, respectively, and the evaporation rates increased with the increasing film temperatures. The whole evaporation process can be tracked with the sensor. Furthermore, the sensor was applied to simultaneously determine the variations of liquid film thicknesses and temperatures in a flow channel. It was found that the film temperatures remained almost constant during passage of low-amplitude surface waves at the film temperatures 308/315/323 K.