Laser propulsion powered by a CW laser has been studied. Thruster performance and energy balance in the thruster were numerically computed. Laser beam optics, inverse-Bremsstrahlung absorption, ionization/recombination reactions, radiation, heat conduction, and convection have been modeled. Computational stiffness due to its quite small flow speed has been overcome by using a Flux Vector Splitting implicit scheme with a large CFL number. The computed positions of Laser Sustained Plasma (LSP) in the thruster show a good agreement with measured ones. The estimated energy conversion efficiency was 23%, and the rest of input power was lost as the radiation from the LSP and as the laser beam passing through the LSP.
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