Numerical simulation of a high efficiency combustion-driven HF laser with preheated fuels

We report a simulation calculation of the processes proceeding in a nozzle array and an optical cavity of a combustiondriven cw HF chemical laser with preheated fuels. Investigation results demonstrate that fuel preheating can dramatically improve the output characteristics of combustion-driven HF chemical lasers. The available output power and specific output power are improved by ~13% and ~46%, respectively, when fuels are preheated to 1200 K. It is shown that the fuel consumption in the combustor is reduced by ~36%, which allows one to improve the performance of combustion-driven HF lasers and make them more compact due to fuel preheating.