Re: Laser triggered discharges

• To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com>
• Subject: Re: Laser triggered discharges
• From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
• Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 22:29:07 -0500
• Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net

From: 	Greg Leyh[SMTP:lod-at-pacbell-dot-net]
Sent: 	Friday, August 29, 1997 1:33 PM
To: 	Tesla List
Subject: 	Re: Laser triggered discharges

DR.RESONANCE wrote:


> To: Steve Date
> 
> There is also an excellent article in the current edition of Scientific
> American on using high power lasers to trigger lightning discharges from
> thunderclouds.  The researchers are from Calif. and New Mexico.  We offered
> to let them use one of our high powered systems to experiment with their
> laser discharges but no reply as to date.


I would expect that's because they really need a HV DC source with some 
capacity behind it to simulate a cloud -- something more like a Van De Graaf
rather than a pulsed TC.

The HV on a TC is only present for a small fraction of the running time, 
and the top capacitance on a TC is nowhere near large enough to hold the
energy needed to generate a single long arc event.  A typical lightning
strike will often have tens of coulombs behind it.


-GL

• Prev: Oil-immersed RFCs?
• Next: Re: Gap Losses
• Index(es):
  • Main
  • Thread