封闭玻璃管道内液体折射率的非接触测量

为了实时、原位和非接触测量工业生产过程中封闭管道系统内透明、半透明液体折射率,提出了一种简单的基于玻璃管壁光学特性的液体折射率测量方法。该方法通过涂覆在玻璃管壁外表面上的透射散射层,将入射激光束转换为进入玻璃管壁的大角度分布的透射散射光;透射散射光到达玻璃管壁与液体的界面上后,符合全反射条件的散射光反射到透射散射层上,自动形成与玻璃管内液体折射率值相关的椭圆形暗斑图像。根据椭圆形暗斑长轴长度与液体折射率之间的解析关系,即可实现玻璃管内液体折射率的原位、非接触测量。对几种常见的透明、半透明液体的折射率进行了实验测量,结果表明:该测量方法的准确性与目前商用数字阿贝折射仪相当(±2×10-4 RIU)。该测量方法具有成本低、稳定性好、抗干扰且光源稳定等优点,而且在处理与液体折射率相关的光学图像时无需调试,光照即显,有望用于封闭管道在非常温、非常压状态下液体折射率的实时、自动和非接触在线监测。

Non-contact measurement for liquid refractive index in a closed pipe

To measure the Refractive Index (RI) of transparent liquid and translucence liquid in industrial process in real-time, in situ and non-contact, a simple method for measuring liquid RI was proposed based on the optical property of glass pipe wall is presented in this paper. By coating a transmission-scattering layer on the outer wall surface of a glass pipe, the incident laser beam was transformed into a wide-angle distributed transmitted scattering light in the glass wall. After the scattered light reached the interface between the pipe wall and the liquid, the scattered light satisfying the condition of total internal reflection was reflected to the transmission-scattering layer to form automatically an oval dark pattern related to the RI of the liquid in the pipe. The method to measure the RI of the liquid in the glass pipe in situ and non-contact could be implemented according to the analytic relation between the long axis length of the oval dark pattern and the liquid RI in the glass pipe. Several RIs of transparent liquid and translucency liquid were measured. The experimental results show that the accuracy of this apparatus is the same as that of an Abbe refractometer(±2×10^-4 RIU(refractive index unit)). It concludes that the method is characterized by simple configuration, lower cost, anti-interference and higher robustness. It is suitable for the optical images relative to liquid refractive indexes, and is expected to monitor the liquid RIs of a closed pipe at an abnormal temperature and an abnormal pressure in real-time, in situ and non-contact.