Density measurements on levitated liquid metal droplets

Electromagnetic levitation is a useful tool for measuring thermophysical properties of high-temperature melts such as liquid metals. Due to its noncontact nature, the undercooled regime is also accessible. Density and thermal expansion of a levitated drop can be derived from volume measurements, if its mass is known. Assuming cylindrical symmetry, the volume of a drop can be determined from its cross section. Using photography, such measurements on liquid metals have been performed in the past. Here we present an improvement of this method, which replaces the photographic camera with a CCD videocamera and subsequent digital image processing. This reduces the time effect required to obtain the results and allows one to average over disturbing surface oscillations. The specific problems of digital image processing, namely resolution and edge detection, are addressed and results on nickel are presented.