Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada (...)

Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, As Represented by the Minister

Minister of National Defence

Kenneth D Foster

Sara J Arnold

Robert D Suart

David R Snelling

John L Halpin

A infrared flare is used as a military decoy for infrared heat seeking missiles. The flare burns a pyrophoric fuel to provide a good simulation of an aircraft spectral signature. To minimize blow-out under extreme wind and high altitude conditions, the flare has an oxygen injector arranged concentrically around the fuel ejector and a shroud sheltering an ignition space just downstream of the fuel ejector. The injected oxygen reacts with a small amount of the fuel to produce a pilot flame in the shroud.

Holder for flames of pyrophore-containing fuels in high-speed air

An apparatus and method for generating on demand a gaseous product from a liquid phase reaction of one reactant in the solid phase at ambient room conditions and another reactant in the liquid phase at ambient room conditions. The reactants preferably are iodine crystals, and liquid tetrahydronaphthalene (THN), with the gaseous product being hydrogen iodide. The liquid phase reaction, in the preferred embodiment, is 2I.sub.2 +C.sub.10 H.sub.12 .fwdarw.4HI+C.sub.10 H.sub.8, known per se. Preferably, THN is pumped from a reservoir to be sprinkled over the iodine crystals in another reservoir. Some iodine dissolves into the liquid THN, with the resulting solution then percolating through a reaction zone containing a heated, porous packing material. Heat is transferred to the solution, thereby promoting, i.e., driving the above reaction. The gaseous hydrogen iodide is then removed from the reaction zone; typically for direct use, for example, in a chemical laser. The gaseous HI is generated at sufficiently high flow rates and/or partial pressures to be used in chemical lasers, eg., based on HF, HCl or HBr which operate at about 2700 nm, 3800 nm, and 4100 nm, respectively.

Gaseous reagent generator

A continuous wave hydrogen bromide (HBr) chemical laser is described, in which laser activity is produced by purely chemical means. Gaseous chlorine dioxide and gaseous nitric oxide are mixed and reacted to produce atomic chlorine. The atomic chlorine is reacted with gaseous molecular bromine to generate atomic bromine. The atomic bromine is reacted with gaseous hydrogen iodide to generate vibrationally excited hydrogen bromide by purely chemical means. The vibrationally excited hydrogen bromide is initially formed in such a way that the population of some of the energy states is inverted. The vibrationally excited HBr is itself lased in an optical resonator cavity, or may be used to transfer energy to another gas, such as carbon dioxide, for lasing action of that other gas. The present apparatus provides a flow channel, and separate injectors and injection means for the gaseous reactant materials chlorine dioxide, nitric oxide, bromine molecules and hydrogen iodide. A laser cavity whose central axis is positioned at about 90.degree. to the directional gas flow is located 1 cm downstream from the hydrogen iodide injectors.

Laser emission from purely chemically generated vibrationally excited

A continuous flow chemical laser is described in which chlorine dioxide and nitric oxide are reacted to produce atomic chlorine and hydrogen iodide is then introduced into the flow stream to form hydrogen chloride in an excited state. The hydrogen chloride may itself be lased in a transverse flow laser or carbon dioxide may be introduced which may be lased in a longitudinal or transverse flow laser. The required chlorine dioxide may be generated by passing chlorine and helium or another inert gas through loosely packed sodium chlorite. The nitric oxide may be introduced in two successive steps first to yield chlorine monoxide and in the second stage to yield atomic chlorine. The latter reaction facilitates operation in the supersonic transverse flow mode in which the hydrogen iodide and second injection of nitric oxide are made just as the flow stream is being transformed from a subsonic flow rate to supersonic flow rate.

Growing community of inventors

Lac Beauport, Canada

Kenneth D Foster