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Title: Military power requirements and backup power considerations

Conference · · Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States)
OSTI ID:6754506

All US Air Force (USAF) facilities have certain critical power requirements that must be met in order to carry out their mission successfully. Internal USAF studies have shown that the mission can degrade precipitously as the available power decreases below the mission critical level. Now, more than ever before, the military and private industry are finding that certain functions, such as automated data processing and automated process control, respond catastrophically to power reductions. Furthermore, increased reliance on electrical power means, in the case of the Air Force, that critical power requirements are anticipated to increase by half over the next 15 yr. For these reasons and others, the USAF is investigating several means of improving the availability of electric power under adverse conditions above that which can be provided by an off-base supplier. Among the approaches to this problem being pursued at this time are a program to improve all sorts of generator sets on a service-wide basis and the Multimegawatt Terrestrial Power (MTP) Program, which is pursuing the design and testing of a small dedicated nuclear power source to provide critical mission power. The purpose of this paper is to provide some insight into some of the issues associated with USAF power programs.

OSTI ID:
6754506
Report Number(s):
CONF-861102-
Journal Information:
Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States), Vol. 53; Conference: American Nuclear Society and Atomic Industrial Forum joint meeting, Washington, DC, USA, 16 Nov 1986
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English