In-bore diagnostics of drag forces in the electrothermal launcher SIRENS

Author

Hurley, J.D. ; Bourham, M.A. ; Gilligan, J.G.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Nucl. Eng., North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC, USA

fYear

1993

fDate

7-9 June 1993

Firstpage

234

Abstract

Summary form only given. In-bore diagnostics of drag forces in SIRENS for fuseless "vacuum" and fuse "atmospheric" operation, with and without a projectile, are being conducted. Preliminary results show that the maximum shear stress varies from 6 to 10 MPa for a 1 kJ input energy, depending on the ablated mass, current profile, and maximum acceleration for aluminum fuse operation. The calculated Reynolds number for turbulent flow, at 1 kJ input energy, varies from 4300 to 4800.

Keywords

electrothermal launchers; 1 kJ; 6 to 10 MPa; Reynolds number; SIRENS; ablated mass; atmospheric operation; current profile; drag forces; electrothermal launcher; fuse operation; fuseless operation; in-bore diagnostics; maximum acceleration; plasma-driven launchers; projectile; shear stress; turbulent flow; vacuum operation; Aluminum; Copper; Electrothermal launching; Fuses; Plasma accelerators; Plasma applications; Plasma density; Plasma materials processing; Plasma sources; Propulsion;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Plasma Science, 1993. IEEE Conference Record - Abstracts., 1993 IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Vancouver, BC, Canada

ISSN

0730-9244

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1360-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PLASMA.1993.593635

Filename

593635