Authors:
C. D. Clark
TASC Inc., 4141 Petroleum Road, Suite 4007 Fort Sam Houston, Texas 78234

W. J. Marshall
Laser Safety Specialties, Wilmington, Delaware 19810

R. J. Thomas
Air Force Research Laboratory, 711 HPW/RHDO, 4141 Petroleum Road, Fort Sam Houston, Texas 78234

In this paper, we present a theoretical analysis of multiple-pulse thermal damage thresholds based on the Arrhenius integral damage model. We consider the dependence of thresholds on both the number of pulses and the pulse spacing and show that the trends can be understood by considering the thermal relaxation time. The biological data that exists in the multiple-pulse thermal damage regime fits in with the model's predictions but does not validate them. We propose a simple experiment for validation and present a hypothetical scheme for adjusting the maximum permissible exposure limit for multiple pulses in the thermal damage regime.