Recent contribution in color interferometry and applications to high-speed flows

Recent improvements brought to color interferometry for analyzing high-speed flows are described through different applications. First, the optical technique based on differential interferometry using a polarized white light and one or two Wollaston prisms allows to record high-speed interferograms of the flow downstream of a circular cylinder. Then, this technique has been applied to axisymmetric flows for studying an interaction between a supersonic hot jet and a coaxial supersonic flow. Another application concerns the study of hypersonic flows using Wollaston prisms with a large birefringence angle. Finally, the analysis of gaseous mixture and the evolution of two-gases interface submitted to an acceleration is presented. Interferograms analysis is made from a modeling of interference fringes versus the optical path difference which allows to easily extract quantitative information of the gas density. In order to obtain absolute measurements of the gas density, real-time holographic interferometry has been developed using a three-color laser source and a panchromatic holographic plate. The technique generates the achromatic white fringe which makes the zero order of interference fringes easy to identify. An application is presented in a 2D subsonic wind tunnel, in which the unsteady wake flow past a cylinder is recorded at high framing rate. In this optical setup, transmission holograms are used. As a conclusion, an approach is proposed to analyze the 3D flows from real-time color holographic interferometry using reflection holograms and the problems to solve are described.