Empirical evidence for Rayleigh scattering model errors

This work focuses on data mining a filtered Rayleigh scattering (FRS) database to diagnose the source(s) of measurement biases in these applied aerodynamic measurements. A qualitative and quantitative bias analysis provides empirical evidence that there is a subset of FRS measurement configurations where the signal model does not agree with measured signals at known aerothermodynamic states of the gas. A root cause assessment of signal bias sources suggests that the key contributing factor is uncertainty in the modeled laser Rayleigh scattering (LRS) signal over the full range of applicable experiment configurations for this optical technique.