Bernhard Knapp is a scientific employee in the Department of of Rocket Propulsion Technology at the DLR Institute of Space Propulsion. He has headed various working groups there since 1990. For around 10 years, he worked on reducing exhaust emissions in domestic heating systems and industrial burners, then spent a further 10 years investigating combustion instabilities in rocket combustion chambers, and has now dedicated himself entirely to optical diagnostics in rocket engines. Various optical measurement techniques from emission and absorption spectroscopy in flames, to high-speed schlieren/BOS or intensified flame radiation imaging, to infrared thermometry are commonly used. He is currently working primarily on diagnostics in flames and exhaust plumes in order to understand the pollution impact of rocket exhaust gases.
