MY PARTICLE FLOW RESEARCH LAB

The Particle Flow Research Lab was the largest laboratory of the USDOE Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center (High Bay of Building 94).   Said lab is now the Pittsburgh site of the USDOE National Energy Technology Laboratory. I shared that lab with my colleague and friend of 25 years, Dr. Anthony V. Cugini.   He would later become the Director of NETL.   He would later be found dead in a barren wooded area near the NETL. I believe NETL Chief Counsel Susan E. Malie is responsible for his death.

The 511 nm and 578 nm beams
of my Atomic Vapor Laser laser

Atomic Vapor Laser built for me by Cem Gokay
and wind-tunnel of my Particle Flow Research Labuil

Fifth Secretary of Energy John S. Herrington Assistant Secretary of the Navy.  

Because Atomic Vapor Lasers are a technology used to develop nuclear weapons, and because mine was built by engineers who built them for Los Alamos, my procurement of an AVL had to be approved by the Fifth Secretary of Energy John S. Herrington. In 1992, the Sixth Secretary of Energy Four Star Admiral James D. Watkins, visited my lab to see my work with the Atomic Vapor Laser.

Sixth Secretary of Energy
Four Stare Admiral James D. Watkins, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander of the Pacific Fleet

I used Nd:Yag lasers, acousto-optically modulated Argon ion lasers, and a copper-vapor laser as pulsed illumination sources for high-speed visualization of particle flows (Particle Image Velocimetry and Particle Tracking Velocimetry).  

Copper-vapor lasers are also known as “Atomic Vapor Lasers” because they are used to “pump” dye lasers in the Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation process (AVLIS) to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.   The best Electrical Nuclear engineer I’ve worked with built my AVL.   He built 200 AVL’s for the DOE Los Alamos National Laboratory to use for the AVLIS process.   As far as I know, mine was the first he built strictly for civilian applications.

Copper vapor lasers pumping dye lasers in the AVLIS process at the USDOE Lawrence Livermore National Lab

Copper vapor laser illuminating flow fields
in the Particle Flow Research Lab wind tunnel

With 30 nanosecond pulses   at 10,000   per second and with astronomical peak power   for 2-3 nanoseconds during each pulse, AVL’s were the only pulsed laser source that produced enough pulse energy to expose the photo-electric image sensors in the available cameras.   Dr. Everett Ramer, a PhD Nuclear Engineer, did the Mie Theory light scattering computations to predict the pulse energy requirements for small (10-100 mm) refractive particles. In our paper “ Development of Pulsed Laser Velocimetry Systems with Photo-Electric Image Sensors ” Everett presents the results in a form that engineers could use to predict pulse energies requirements without knowing how to do Mie Theory radiation calculations.

I also used 10W Argon continuous-beam lasers with acousto-optic modulators to pulse-code the beam. To visualize particle flows near light-scattering surfaces, I used polystyrene particles doped with Rhodamine 6G as tracers; holographic notch filters to block the 488 nm   and 514 nm Argon lines and pass the orange-red broad spectrum fluorescent emission from Rhodamine 6G into a high-speed camera.

I learned of that technology while visiting the UK’s Harwell Atomic Energy Agency lab in Oxfordshire England.   I have a patent on that technology for medical devices.   Here’s my Trip Report from 1992 about my discussions of these technologies with engineers from Oxford Lasers and Harwell Atomic Energy Agency.

Aligning the 488nm and 514nm beams of an Argon ion laser for flow visualization of the Novacor Left Ventricular Assist Device

My brother visiting my lab just after he got his Medical Degree: Dr. Douglas N. Shaffer, MD