Influence of Dead Zones and Transonic Slewing on Thermal Blooming.

摘要

An experimental research program is being carried out to investigate two particular aspects of the thermal blooming problem. Thermal blooming is the self-induced effect which results from refractive index variations in the path of a laser beam caused by absorption of laser beam energy. The two aspects being investigated are the effect of transonic flow and also dead zones on the thermal distortion. When heat is added to flow at near sonic velocities severe density gradients and even shock waves can result. An experiment involving a CO2laser and a blow down wind tunnel are being used to investigate this problem and a pulsed schlieren system is used to observe the density gradients. (Modified author abstract)