Abstract
This article presents the method of analyzing a mach 2 flow of air through a scramjet and over a cavity using hydroxyl tagging velocimetry (HTV). This method is of particular use in supersonic engines, where, fuel is ignited by a flame protected from airflow by a cavity. Emphasis of the experiment discussed is placed on the image analysis portion of the HTV experiments. The current software used to analyze laser intersections, created by Michigan State University, is user-intensive and inefficient because of the large number of inputs needed to produce a result. The conceptual method behind this imaging software is explained along with the mathematical algorithms related to the spatial correlation technique. The spatial correlation technique offers a way to determine the distance that an object has moved from one photograph to another. This work focuses on improvements to the dynamic analysis of images to expand the applicability of current software tools. The failures and successes of each method are explained.Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (linked here). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are available for wide dissemination at no cost to readers, with proper attribution (acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal), in educational and other non-commercial settings. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
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