In research and technology one is often confronted with processes which occur at such high speeds that they can neither be seen with the naked eye nor recorded with traditional methods. Examples are explosions, crashes, plasma discharges, and crack or wave propagation. The flight phases of insects could also be mentioned, as well as the motion of raipdly running machinery. The automotive industry is investigating injection and combustion processes with the goal of modifying the rapid burning process so that the formation of pollutants is reduced.
Speed as high-tech magic
In order to analyze these ultrafast processes, a recording system has been devised at DLR Göttingen using an ultra-high-speed video camera which can be synchronized by means of ultra-short-duration steps. A number of experiments are under way with the goal of using this fascinating camera system to temporally resolve a given process to an extent which surpasses what is possible with the unaided human eye, for example, the bursting of a balloon.
Ultra-high speed videography
This ultrafast, computer-controlled video camera is 40,000 times faster than an ordinary video camera. It can record up to a million images each second. You can store these images in an eight-channel computer memory, in a frame grabber. They are then available for further processing as pixel graphic files.