A laser Doppler technique for measuring flow velocities in high current arc discharges

Abstract
A laser Doppler system is described which is capable of measuring gas flow velocities up to 3*103 m s-1. The sensitivity of the system is sufficient to detect light scattered from a single micrometre sized particle against, for instance, the intense background radiation generated by a 10 kA arc discharge burning vertically in air between copper electrodes. Some preliminary velocity measurements are presented for a 3 kA arc burning in an underexpanded supersonic air jet within a model circuit-breaker test head.

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