ABSTRACT
The formation of soot in combustion systems has long been a topic of study and one in which laser-based diagnostics have had an essential role. In our modern world the importance of soot as a pollutant is clearly recognized to be one of the most serious challenges to combustion engineers, particularly in the area of diesel engines. However, soot also has a critical impact on combustor performance, reliability, and durability and is critically impor tant to heat transfer in fires. Consequently, in situ measurements of soot are necessary to understand the formation and destruction processes associated with it. The key parameters to be determined include soot concentration (volume fraction), particle size, and number concentration. Furthermore, recent studies of soot have established that, although initially formed as individual spherical particles, soot particles quickly become aggregate struc tures made up of a large number of small primary particles. Thus, particle size measurements now focus on both aggregate size as well as primary particle size within the aggregate.
