Numerical methods for two-dimensional cw chemical laser power calculations

The current status of two-dimensional chemical laser modeling at Los Alamos is reviewed, with emphasis on numerical methods for coupling the radiation field to the fluid dynamics so that laser power can be calculated. The RICE-RAD code was developed by incorporating radiation and lasing into the basic RICE code for transient compressible multicomponent reactive fluid flow. Example solutions are presented to illustrate the application of the code to several existing and proposed chemical laser systems. Finally, an alternate approximate method is described for estimating laser power based on nonlasing (small-signal) vibrational distributions as input.