Carbon dioxide gasdynamic lasers utilizing gas mixtures containing carbon monoxide

Abstract

An investigation was made of CO2 gasdynamic lasers utilizing mixtures of nitrogen and carbon monoxide for storing the vibrational energy. The CO2 was injected into the main stream at a point where the Mach number was M = 2.5–3. It was established that the dependence of the inversion characteristics on the point of injection was more marked when there were significant quantities of carbon monoxide present than in the case of pure nitrogen. For an optimal choice of the injection point the gain decreased by less than a factor of two when nitrogen was completely replaced by carbon monoxide. This was a considerable improvement on the results of published experimental work. In the lasing regime, a specific output energy of 15 J/g was achieved for a stored vibrational energy of 42 J/g, neglecting the CO2 flow rate.