Water cannon laser propulsion is expected to find broad application fields in the atmospheric environments. Optimum thruster designs were explored for minimizing water propellant quantity and for finding continuous efficient propellant feeding mechanisms. Basic experiments of single pulse thrusting were firstly performed for cannon calibers of 2 to 5 mm with water propellant quantities from 10 to 180 micro liters. The largest energy for a single laser pulse was 910 mJ. The results showed tendencies that the momentum coupling coefficients decreases as the laser pulse energy becomes large. In some test data, water quantities have shown also an inversely proportional relation regarding the momentum coupling coefficients. After these basic experiments, two test devices for continuous propellant supply were fabricated, one with a 2 mm diameter caliber cannon, and the other with a 1 mm diameter caliber cannon. Continuous pulse shooting tests were performed up to 20 Hz. Precise investigations have not been done yet, but from the recorded video image, it seems that the devices successfully fed water propellant to the cannon barrels during the tests.
Experimental Study on Continuous Liquid Propellant Supply Mechanisms for Water Cannon Laser Thruster
BEAMED ENERGY PROPULSION: Fourth International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion ; 2005 ; Nara (Japan)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 830 , 1 ; 297-307
2006-05-02
11 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Experimental Study on Continuous Liquid Propellant Supply Mechanisms for Water Cannon Laser Thruster
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