Quantitative Schlieren Techniques Applied to High Current Arc Investigations

Abstract

Applications of quantitative schlieren techniques to pulsed high current electric arcs are described. A new formalism for the Abel inversion is derived that does not start from the small angle approximation. The numerical treatment of experimental data is given special attention. A pulsed argon laser was constructed that gives enough background intensity to outshine a 2000-A arc. Several high speed schlieren techniques were tried to obtain quantitative information about the density and temperature in the neighborhood of the arc.