High Pressure CW Chemical Laser.

Abstract

A fast flow demonstration device is described which has a channel cross section of 2.5 cm high by 6 cm long. It was constructed to evaluate the performance of a cw H2-F2-He laser system operating at cavity pressures near one atmosphere2and flow Mach numbers between 0.6 and 1.5. A small percentage of the F2 is dissociated by passing the premixed gas flow through an e-beam sustained electrical discharge. Predictions of laser system performance are presented and discussed for both supersonic and subsonic flow. Experimental results characterizing the electrical discharge are presented for a wide range of operating parameters. Difficulties encountered in initiating the flowing gas mixture are discussed above with various experiments conducted to determine the cause. The latter experiments point to insufficient fluorine dissociation by the electrical discharge. This conclusion is supported by results presented from a discharge kinetics code.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1976
Accession Number
ADA340640

Entities

People

  • D. Rensch

Organizations

  • HRL Laboratories

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Barometric Pressure
  • Charge Carriers
  • Chemical Lasers
  • Chemical Reactants
  • Chemical Reaction Properties
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Current Density
  • Dissociation
  • Electron Beams
  • Electrons
  • Gas Flow
  • Glow Discharges
  • High Pressure
  • Ionization
  • Laser Resonators
  • Lasers
  • Measurement

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Combustion science or combustion engineering.
  • Fluid Dynamics.
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Lasers
  • Hypersonics
  • Hypersonics - Hypersonic Flight
  • Hypersonics - Hypersonic Flow