FLITES Technology

FLITES builds upon the expertise of the UK's world-leading groups in fibre-lasers, gas-detection opto-electronics, and chemical species tomography (CST), allied to its industrial strengths in aero-engine manufacture and aviation fuel technology. High-power fibre-lasers, operating at wavelengths that give access to gaseous molecular species through vibrational-rotational absorption spectroscopy, offer radically new measurement architectures and sensitivity levels. FLITES will establish the new gas detection technology of Tunable Fibre-Laser Absorption Spectroscopy, TFLAS.

Soot will be imaged via the novel technique of near-IR continuous-wave laser-induced incandescence (CW-LII), in a planar tomographic set-up previously invented for the fluorescence case. The high light output power available from the fibre-lasers to be demonstrated in FLITES will transform the logistics and sensitivity of CST with (relatively) large numbers of simultaneous measurement paths through the plume. Parallel threads of research will be facilitated by using near-IR diode lasers and existing mid-IR sources in single-path systems, which also mitigate against research risks. The techniques developed in the university laboratories will be implemented on a full-scale aero-engine mounted on a testbed at Rolls-Royce.