ATHENA Laser Pew Pews a truck out of existence at a range of one mile

originally posted by: PeterMcFly
a reply to: stormbringer1701

petawatt class laser diode array: phys.org... ten shots per second.

OK, since no one wish/can use their calculator, I'll do some calculations for you:

HAPLS is designed to be capable of generating peak powers greater than one petawatt (1 quadrillion watts, or 10^15)

That is a peak power of 1E15 Watts

with each pulse lasting 30 femtoseconds (30 quadrillionths of a second).

We idealize using rectangular pulse shape of 30E-15 second duration.

Energy of each pulse is equal to power * time = 1E15 * 30E-15 = 30 Joules

at a repetition rate of 10 Hertz

In one second, we have 10 pulses, total energy = 10 * 30 J = 300 Joules

Average power of this terrible "death ray", Pavg = energy/time = 300 J / 1 s = 300 Watts

HAPLS is capable of 300 Watts average power !!!!!!!!!!!!

yes the average power is of course a lot less than peak pulsed power but the peaked pulse is what gets reported. and the developers think it's important.