Search

The air-breathing laser propulsion tests are conducted for parabolic models by using a high power TEA-CO2 pulsed laser. It is found the momentum coupling coefficient Cm varies with the pulse repeatable frequency and reaches the maximum near 50Hz. With a multi-use pendulum chamber, the change of Cm at different ambient pressure is measured. The experimental results show that the propulsion efficiency Cm does not decrease below the altitude of 10km, even increases a little bit. The calculated Cm fits the experimental result up to altitude 3km, then, they are separated. One possible reason is the temperature which is constant in the experiments. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent progress in our experimental investigation on the air-breathing mode of laser propulsion has been reported. With a high power TEA-CO2 pulsed Laser, both horizontal and vertical propulsion experiments were conducted. The energy of each pulse is 15–18J. The frequency can be adjusted from 20–180Hz. Several parabolic reflectors of aluminum alloy with different focus f were used in the experiments. A high speed CCD camera was applied to record movement variables of the reflectors. For single pulse experiments, the measured momentum coupling coefficient Cm is 27.7dyne.s/J for f=10mm, and 22.82dyne.s/J for f=15mm. For multi-pulse experiments (frequency 50Hz, work time 0.5s), the horizontal propulsion distance was greater than 1.5m, and the vertical propulsion height exceeded 1m, but the average Cm is lower than that of single pulse experiments. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]