Acceleration of solid hydrogen pellet using augmented railgun for magnetic fusion reactor refueling
- Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States)
A 1.2-m long electromagnetic railgun with separate augmentation was designed, fabricated, and tested for the purpose of injecting hypervelocity hydrogen pellets into magnetic fusion devices for refueling. A compact configuration of two pairs of coaxial rails insulated by thin Kapton film was employed. Two pulse-forming networks were used to separately control the duration, amplitude, and overlap of the current pulses. Copper sulfate resistors were employed as impedance-matching resistors and bank short resistors. The magnetic field inside the gun bore was boosted by the high current on the augmentation rails, which in turn increased the J x B force without increasing the armature current, resulting in less ablation of the gun bore and pellet. Higher acceleration was achieved due to reduced inertial and viscous frag. Using a 1.2-m augmented railgun, hydrogen pellet velocities in excess of 2.5 km/s were achieved. Hydrogen pellet accelerations as high as 4.4 {times} 10{sup 6} m/s{sup 2} were achieved at a railgun current of 13.5 kA while the acceleration obtained on a conventional railgun was 2.2 {times} 10{sup 6} m/s{sup 2} at 14.1 kA. Computer simulations have been performed using the finite element code MSC/EMAS to analyze the current density, magnetic field, Lorentz force, and inductance gradient of the conventional and augmented railguns.
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-84ER52111
- OSTI ID:
- 32051
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940481-; ISSN 0018-9464; TRN: IM9517%%346
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 31, Issue 1Pt1; Conference: 7. symposium on electromagnetic launch technology, San Diego, CA (United States), 20-24 Apr 1994; Other Information: PBD: Jan 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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