Researchers have applied open path optical sensing techniques to a variety of workplace and environmental monitoring problems. Usually these data are reported in terms of a path-average (or integrated) concentration. When assessing potential human exposures along a beam path, this path-average value is not always informative since concentrations along the path can vary substantially from the beam average. The focus of this research is to arrive at a method for estimating the upper-bound in contaminant concentrations over a fixed open beam path. The approach taken here uses a statistical model to estimate an upper-bound concentration based on a combination of the path-average and a measure of the spatial variability computed from point samples along the beam path. Results of computer simulations and experimental testing in a controlled ventilation chamber indicate that the model produced conservative estimates for the maximum concentration along the beam path. This approach may have many applications for open path monitoring in workplaces, or wherever maximum concentrations are a concern.
