Characteristics of a combustion-driven CO
2 Gasdynamic Laser (CO
2 GDL), which should be a radiation heating simulator for re-entry of a planetary probe and AOTV, are experimentally and theoretically obtained. In the present GDL system carbon dioxide CO
2 produced in the combustion process of liquid benzene C
6H
6 with gaseous oxygen CO
2 is used as lasing media associated with the energy-pumping gaseous nitrogen N
2. The influence of gas components on the small-signal gain is investigated using four expansion ratios of 5, 7.5, 10 and 15, which have common throat height 1.0mm. The experimental results show that the small-signal gain increases as the nozzle expansion ratio increases and that the maximum gain obtained is 0.2m
-1 at the expansion ratio of 10 and 15. Comparison is made between the experimental and theoretical results based on the Anderson model, and fairly reasonable agreement is obtained. The theoretical results show that the small-signal gain decreases when combustion pressure increases and the maximum small-signal gain is obtained by optimum composition of combustion pressure and expansion ratio which are able to be produced in several GDL system.
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