Characteristics of light scattering by smoke particles based on spheroid models

Light scattering models of smoke particles play an important role on the development of photoelectric smoke detection. Aiming at the influence of morphology of smoke particles, spheroid models are introduced to analyze the Stokes scattering matrix of smoke particles, which are lognormal size distributions. Under the condition of random orientations, the effects of refractive indexes and mean size of smoke particles are considered. The results show that after averaging of the orientation and size, the nonsphericity of smoke particles has a considerable effect on their light scattering. Additionally, the nonsphericity of gray smoke particles generated from smoldering fires is more important than soot from flaming fires for analyzing the light scattering.