AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Inversion of Multi-channel Light Scattering Data for Particle Size Distribution Measurements
MARK KANAPARTHI, Ishara Jayasuriya, Suresh Dhaniyala, Clarkson University
Abstract Number: 466 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract Aerosol size distribution measurements are routinely made using optical techniques, by relating single particle light-scattering response to its equivalent particle size. Light-scattering based size distribution measurements can be made over a wide particle diameter range of ~ 55 nm to ~ 70 µm using a range of commercial instruments. While single-particle light scattering instruments can provide accurate size information and near real-time size distribution measurements, these instruments are often expensive and large in size because of the need to have precise control of particle passage through a small detection volume. The design requirements that allow for effective detection of small (sub-100 nm) single particles also limit the dynamic range of measurement of an instrument. With the increasing availability of inexpensive and powerful optical sensor arrays, the possibility of particle measurements over a wide size range at low cost is becoming possible. A detector array configuration allows for a collection of a richer data set that could be analyzed for particle size distribution measurements. Such analysis is, however, made challenging by the complexity of inversion of the system response function matrix for size distribution calculation. In this presentation, we investigate the possibility of using optical detector arrays for size distribution measurements by understanding the practical limits of such systems. Our results from theoretical system modeling and preliminary experiments will be presented.