Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Schlieren imaging and photography have been used as a flow visualization technique in transonic flows for almost 150 years when August Toepler discovered that he could see variations in air density by shining parallel beams of light through the region of interest. The deflection caused by the variation of the indices of refraction appear as light and dark patterns if a knife-edge is used at the focal point of the imaging lens. However during most of this time, it has since been used more for qualitative rather than quantitative measurements. This image is a 2 dimensional view of the all the flow phenomena much like an X-ray shows all of the body. The medical field has gained a great tool by realizing, that although an X-ray taken from the front and the back produce the same image, one from the side will produce different and useful information. Radon was the first to prove that the 3-D field of density could be reconstructed from a series of 2-D images taken at various viewing angles. The transformation named after him is closely related to the Fourier transform. This is the basis of tomography and the medical instrument known as the Computed Axial Tomography scanner or CAT scan for short. This vast body of knowledge is directly applicable to the proposed study. This research will apply the modern imaging techniques that transformed X-rays into 3 dimensional views inside the body. By combining these techniques, a better understanding of the flows around transonic and supersonic aircraft will result.