ENERGY ABSORPTION STRUCTURE OF LASER SUPPORTED DETONATION WAVE

Abstract

In Repetitive Pulsed (RP) laser propulsion, when the high energy laser beam is focused in the thruster, Laser Supported Detonation (LSD) wave is generated. This LSD wave converts the laser energy to the enthalpy of the blast wave, which will then apply impulse to the wall of the thruster. Therefore, the energy absorption structure and sustaining condition of LSD wave are important to be understood, which was still not clear though some visualized experiments have been conducted by Ushio et al. before. In this paper, 2‐wavelength Mach‐Zehnder interferometry is brought to investigate the electron density distribution of LSD area. At the same time, the temperature of the laser induced plasma is measured by an emission spectroscopy experiment, and calculated based on the assumption of local thermal equilibrium. The results show that in LSD, the electron density has a peak (as high as 2×1024[m−3]) behind the shock wave. The irradiated laser can be entirely absorbed before reaching the position of this peak. As a result, a new peak is always generating in front of the old one and this propagating has the same velocity as that of the blast wave. In this way, high heating ratio is sustained right after the shock front. However, as the laser pulse energy becomes lower, the propagating peak cannot catch up with the blast wave anymore, which leads to a termination of the LSD wave. From this study, it is found that for sustaining the LSD wave, a sufficiently thin laser absorption layer is necessary.