Jet engine based mobile gas dynamic CO2 laser for water surface cleaning

The purpose of the project presented in the paper is to develop a laser technology to clean large areas of seas and other water surfaces from oil film contamination. It mainly aims development of technological scheme and engineering design of jet engine based mobile Gas Dynamic Lasers (GDLs) (100-250 kW) intended to solve this important problem of environment protection. This method and laser system proposed are expected to complement other traditional methods, which usually more successfully treat bulk layer oil pollution but do not match to eliminate up to 100 μm oil films. In this paper, the basic design concept of a mobile gas dynamic CO2 laser is introduced, and the possibility of using various types of lasers for solution of required tasks is considered and the selection of GDL is justified. Then, the possible schemes of organization of air supply in the laser installation are considered, and the jet engines are selected as the high quality power unit of GDL installation. The necessary volume of the selected jet engine adaptation/modification experimental works is presented. Finally, the paper describes the design concept of GDL and the pneumohydraulic schematics, and gives structures of the related equipment, fuel tanks and operation control units. Now, the author has completed the conceptual analysis of GDL installation for disposal of petroleum films from a water surface, the basic capability of development of such installation is shown. The basic characteristics of the system are discussed and the schematic and design solutions of basic installation are presented. Furthermore, the GDL platform has been developed and some demonstration operations with scanning beam over water surface covered with petroleum film are carried out. The experiments confirm the effective gathering and burning of oil films on the water surfaces by proposed system.