Post by goduranus on Nov 5, 2016 11:43:22 GMT
I made a post about this earlier in the lasers thread, but most people may not have seen it. So this is sort of a repost. I made a laser that can partially defeat aerogel, at a rate of 1cm per second per 20 group of lasers, or 0.5mm per second per laser. An array of 20 of these can burn through the common 5cm aerogel armor in 5 seconds.
Most people's problem with lasers not burning through aerogel is apparently that they made lasers too big, and focused the laser onto too small of an area, thinking that the highest power concentrated in the smallest area is the best. But this is not true, a small spot is difficult to hit repeatedly. Against a non-conducting material like aerogel, a huge laser will just make a bunch of millimeter pockmarks.
So, anti-aerogel laser lenses should be small, but total output should be high. When lenses are smaller, lasers will hit a large area, which can be hit more repeatedly. Yes, the intensity will be lower, but it doesn't need to be very high, it only needs to overcome the the armor's dissipation at melting temperature. More intensity apparently does not help.
With aerogel, where the melting point is only 800K, you can reach the maximum destruction rate with a mere 100kw/m^2 of laser intensity. In exchange, your laser can hit a 2m x 2m area at once, depleting the aerogel much faster.
This also matters for burning through other materials , experimentally, I've found the intensity needed to destroy the following materials to be approximately:
Aerogel: 100kW/m^2
Aluminum: 5MW/m^2
Tungsten: 150MW/m^2
So depending on your target, choose your lens sizes appropriately.
And here's a 6.5MW laser optimized for destroying aerogel, only 101kW at 250kM, but hits 2.5 square meters once.
Most people's problem with lasers not burning through aerogel is apparently that they made lasers too big, and focused the laser onto too small of an area, thinking that the highest power concentrated in the smallest area is the best. But this is not true, a small spot is difficult to hit repeatedly. Against a non-conducting material like aerogel, a huge laser will just make a bunch of millimeter pockmarks.
So, anti-aerogel laser lenses should be small, but total output should be high. When lenses are smaller, lasers will hit a large area, which can be hit more repeatedly. Yes, the intensity will be lower, but it doesn't need to be very high, it only needs to overcome the the armor's dissipation at melting temperature. More intensity apparently does not help.
With aerogel, where the melting point is only 800K, you can reach the maximum destruction rate with a mere 100kw/m^2 of laser intensity. In exchange, your laser can hit a 2m x 2m area at once, depleting the aerogel much faster.
This also matters for burning through other materials , experimentally, I've found the intensity needed to destroy the following materials to be approximately:
Aerogel: 100kW/m^2
Aluminum: 5MW/m^2
Tungsten: 150MW/m^2
So depending on your target, choose your lens sizes appropriately.
And here's a 6.5MW laser optimized for destroying aerogel, only 101kW at 250kM, but hits 2.5 square meters once.
