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Re: Laser triggered dischar
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 26 Sep 1997 11:15:13 -0700
From: Dale Hall <Dale.Hall-at-trw-dot-com>
To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: Laser triggered dischar
Reply to: RE>>Laser triggered discharges
See new article: Laser Focus World, Sept '97, pg 38, outdoor tests by Kansai Elect Pwr Co, Osaka, Japan, 2ea electron beam controlled CO2 Laser 1kJ 50ns pulses suceeded in triggering 35kA gnd-cloud lightning discharges designed to protect pwr xmsn lines from hits.
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Date: 8/30/97 9:35 AM
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