Open AccessHigh-repetition-rate laser ignition of fuel–air mixtures
Author(s) -
Paul S. Hsu,
Sukesh Roy,
Zhili Zhang,
Jordan C. Sawyer,
Mikhail N. Slipchenko,
Jason Mance,
James R. Gord
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
optics letters/optics index
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.524
H-Index - 272
eISSN - 1071-2763
pISSN - 0146-9592
DOI - 10.1364/ol.41.001570
Subject(s) - ignition system , laser ignition , laser , materials science , nanosecond , pulse (music) , optics , repetition (rhetorical device) , physics , linguistics , philosophy , detector , thermodynamics
A laser-ignition (LI) method is presented that utilizes a high-repetition-rate (HRR) nanosecond laser to reduce minimal ignition energies of individual pulses by ∼10 times while maintaining comparable total energies. The most common LI employs a single nanosecond-laser pulse with energies on the order of tens of millijoules to ignite combustible gaseous mixtures. Because of the requirements of high energy per pulse, fiber coupling of traditional LI systems is difficult to implement in real-world systems with limited optical access. The HRR LI method demonstrated here has an order of magnitude lower per-pulse energy requirement than the traditional single-pulse LI technique, potentially allowing delivery through standard commercial optical fibers. Additionally, the HRR LI approach significantly increases the ignition probability of lean combustible mixtures in high-speed flows while maintaining low individual pulse energies.