A FUEL/AIR DRIVE FLUX COMPRESSOR POWER UNIT FOR ELECTROTHERMAL GUNS

The Ktech Team proposes a feasibility study of a fuel/air driven flux compression power unit (FCPU) for electric guns. Through variations of inductance gradients and through changes in scale, the proposed technology will be applicable to both electrothermal/chemical and electromagnetic guns. In the Phase 1 effort, we develop simulation models to predict the performance of the flux compression power source and to provide design parameters for the demonstration hardware. Experiments will be performed to demonstrate a flux compression power source can multiply the seed current and shape the pulse time history to meet gun requirements will be used to accelerate the piston in the flux compression demonstration. A feasibility assessment of the ability of a compressed diesel fuel-air mixture to produce controlled acceleration of a flux compressing piston will be performed. The measured results from the demonstrations and existing fuel/air combustion data will provide normalization for the simulation models. These models then have the capability of scale the performance of the flux compression system to power a weapons size ET/C gun. A prototype, weapon size flux compression power source design is to be generated for the Phase II validation program.