Acceleration of solid hydrogen pellet using augmented railgun for magnetic fusion reactor refueling

Journal Article · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1995 · IEEE Transactions on Magnetics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/20.364657· OSTI ID:32051

Zhang, J; Kim, K; King, T L ^[1]

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1. 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--
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Magnetics Journal Issue: 1Pt1 Vol. 31; ISSN IEMGAQ; ISSN 0018-9464
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
DESIGN
M CODES
PELLET INJECTION
PERFORMANCE
RAILGUN ACCELERATORS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR FUELING
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS