Variable wind direction effects on thermal blooming correction

Louis Scott Hills; Jerry E. Long; Frederick G. Gebhardt

doi:10.1117/12.43545

1 May 1991 Variable wind direction effects on thermal blooming correction

Louis Scott Hills, Jerry E. Long, Frederick G. Gebhardt

Proceedings Volume 1408, Propagation of High-Energy Laser Beams Through the Earth's Atmosphere II; (1991) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.43545
Event: Optics, Electro-Optics, and Laser Applications in Science and Engineering, 1991, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Abstract

Rotating or variable cross wind directions that normally occur in the atmosphere along the propagation path of a high power laser beam are important since they can result in significant reductions in both the amount of whole beam thermal blooming phase distortion as well as the growth of the small-scale blooming instabilities which often limit the effectiveness of atmospheric compensation. In this paper we describe a time-dependent, atmospheric propagation and compensation simulation code, APAC, which includes the effects of variable wind directions on blooming compensation. Simulation results are presented for a particular measured vertical wind profile which show that small-scale blooming instability effects are significantly reduced when the effects of the actual wind direction variations are included. A simple model has also been developed to calculate the number of waves of blooming phase delta(phi), to use as an appropriate scaling parameter for blooming with rotating winds, rather than the standard distortion parameter N(D) defined for the constant wind direction case.

Citation Download Citation

Louis Scott Hills, Jerry E. Long, and Frederick G. Gebhardt "Variable wind direction effects on thermal blooming correction", Proc. SPIE 1408, Propagation of High-Energy Laser Beams Through the Earth's Atmosphere II, (1 May 1991); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.43545

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