Line profile reconstruction: validation and comparison of reconstruction methods

Currently, open path Fourier transform infrared (OP-FTIR) spectrometers have been applied in some fenceline monitoring, but their use has been limited because path-integrated concentration measurements typically only provide an estimate of the average concentration. We present a series of experiments that further explore the use of path-integrated measurements to reconstruct various pollutant distributions along a linear path. Our experiments were conducted in a ventilation chamber using an OP-FTIR instrument to monitor a tracer-gas release over a fenceline configuration. These experiments validate a line profile method (1-D reconstruction). Additionally, we expand current reconstruction techniques by applying the Bootstrap to our measurements. We compared our reconstruction results to our point samplers using the concordance correlation factor (CCF). Of the four different release types, three were successfully reconstructed with CCFs greater than 0.9. The difficult reconstruction involved a narrow release where the pollutant was limited to one segment of the segmented beampath. In general, of the three reconstruction methods employed, the average of the bootstrapped reconstructions was found to have the highest CCFs when compared to the point samplers. Furthermore, the bootstrap method was the most flexible and allowed a determination of the uncertainty surrounding our reconstructions.