Development and Performance Studies of Arc Tunnel

Abstract

The thesis reports the Development and Performance studies of 50 kW arc tunnel relevant for a kW level Hydrogen Fluoride / Deuterium Fluoride (HF/DF) laser. HF/ DF is a high power chemical laser based on vibrational transition. The plasma arc discharge in an am heater/ generator is essentially employed for inducing thermal dissociation of SF6 for production of fluorine atoms. The dissociation of SF6 is a much safer alternative than other options of combustion of F2/ NF3 in an environment of H2/D2.The present work discusses the overall mechanism of an arc discharge phenomena by numerical modeling employing commercial code COMSOL and subsequent development of arc heaters for HF/DF laser applications. The variations in material properties, temperature, and velocity due to the generated arc have been studied. Comparing these results with studies available in the literature has validated the computational results. A 50 kW am heater system suitable for a kW level HF/ DF laser was designed and developed. A dedicated custom-built Data Acquisition System (DAS) has been developed and interfaced with arc-driven HF/DF laser tunnel. The DAS has been designed to work in a noisy and hostile environment for testing and performance evaluation of arc tunnel. The arc behavior has also been studied on 50 kW arc heater using Argon and Nitrogen. The development of 50 kW arc tunnel with supersonic nozzle, cavity, diffuser and vacuum dump was implemented and experimental results conducive for lasing are reported here...