Experimental Investigation of Liquid-propellant Laser Propulsion with a Horizontal Momentum Measuring Lever
- Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China)
Thrust performance of Liquid-propellant laser propulsion (LLP) is seriously influenced by factors like laser parameters, choice of propellants and ablation materials. For the purpose of studying these influences, series of impulse measuring experiments for various propellants and ablation materials were conducted. The key device is a Horizontal Momentum Measuring Lever, which covers a C{sub m} measuring range from 10{sup 3} Ns/MJ to about 1.6x10{sup 4} Ns/MJ. A Nd:YAG laser was used as the laser source. From the result, it is found that laser energy density plays an important role on LLP efficiency, higher energy density leads to higher C{sub m} and I{sub sp}. Highest C{sub m} of about 10{sup 4} Ns/MJ with the I{sub sp} of 3.57s was achieved by focusing the laser to the average energy density of 8.83x10{sup 8} W/cm{sup 2}. Besides of that, it is also found that when the energy density is certainly high, C{sub m} of LLP increases stably with the increase of the propellant thickness, which gives a potential way to further improve the thrust performance in LLP.
- OSTI ID:
- 21367298
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1230, Issue 1; Conference: 6. international symposium on beamed energy propulsion, Scottsdale, AZ (United States), 1-5 Nov 2009; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3435441; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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