Shiming Liu

Experimental Study on Laser Propulsion of Air‐breathing Mode

A series of experiments were done to investigate the effect of laser parameters on laser propulsion. A high power high repetition rate TEA CO2 laser was employed in the experiments. The output energy of the laser is up to 15J and the repetition rate is up to 150 pps. The light craft models in the experiments were two parabolic aluminum shells with the exit diameter of 50 mm, the focus lengths were 5mm and 10mm respectively. The effect of the laser’s repetition rate on coupling coefficient was mainly investigated. The value of optimal repetition rate for laser propulsion of air‐breathing mode is discussed. On the basis of our investigation, a setup of laser propulsion demonstration experiment was designed. And laser‐powered free flight demonstration was realized. The 4.2g parabolic craft with 10mm focus length was boosted by the TEA CO2 laser to the altitude of more than 2.6m (limited by the ceiling of the laboratory) in a flight lasting 1.75s. The output pulse energy is 13J and the repetition rate is 50 pps.

High-repetition rate industrial TEA CO2 laser with average output power of 1.5 kW

High power high repetition rate TEA CO2 laser has potential importance in material processing such as shock hardening, glazing, drilling, welding, and cutting for high damage threshold materials, as well as in chemical reaction and isotope separation. This paper describes a transverse-flow closed-cycle UV-preionized TEA CO2 laser with peak pulse power of 20 MW, maximum average power of 1.5 KW at repetition rate of 300 HZ. The laser has compact constructure of gas flow circulation system using tangential fans. With addition of small amounts of H2 and CO to the normal CO2-N2-He gas mixture, one filling sealed operating lifetime is up to millions of pulses. A novel spark gap switch has been developed for very high repetition rate laser discharge in the condition of high pulse power.

A sequential discharge TEA CO2 laser with high repetition rate and high output power

Abstract In this paper, a novel excitation method named as sequential discharge is realized in a two-module TEA CO2 laser by using a special rotating spark gap. It is demonstrated that the repetition rate and the output power of a laser can be multiplied through this method. For the two-module TEA CO2 laser in the experiment, the repetition rate is 300 Hz and the average power is 356 W when each module discharges; the repetition rate is 600 Hz and the average power is 713 W when the two modules discharge sequentially.

Rotating spark gap switched discharge TEA CO2 laser with average power up to 12 kW

A high average power TEA CO2 laser employing rotating spark gap switch is described. Average power up to 12kW has been achieved at the repetition rate of 400Hz.

Effective way to minimize the initial spike energy in a pulsed TE CO2 laser

A novel method is provided in conventional TE CO 2 laser configuration by utilizing a specially designed small capacitance in the UV preionization scheme and a carefully optimized pulser/sustainer discharge circuitry so that the initial spike energy in the laser pulse profile induced by gain-switch effect can be greatly reduced. An experimental illustration is given in which the initial spike energy in the laser pulse is suppressed to less than 3.5% of the total pulse energy while stable laser performance is maintained.

Investigation on momentum coupling coefficient for a parabolic shell

Momentum coupling coefficients of TEA CO2 laser pulses for a parabolic aluminum shell were investigated. Momentum coupling coefficients were measured with a pendulum in a chamber, the energy of the incident laser pulse was varied from 8.3J to 50.9J, and the gas pressure in the chamber was changed from 100 kPa to 20 kPa in our experiments. Experimental data were analyzed thoroughly. It was found that the coupling coefficients under the air pressure of 100kPa decreased very slowly from 242 N/MW to 170 N/MW for the incident energy from 50.9J to 15.1J but decreased sharply for the energy between 15.1 J to 13.8 J. And it was different for the air pressure below 100 kPa. Indoor free flight of our parabolic shell was also analyzed, coupling coefficients and some other parameters were deduced from the experimental data.

High-average-power TEA CO2 laser with rotating spark gap switch

A new type of high repetition rate TEA CO2 laser with rotating spark gap as a discharge switch has been developed. The laser has potential ability of scaling up to very high energy and average power. In this paper, we report the recent progress in basic research.