Electric Current Induced on Insulated Metallic Cylinder by Compton Current Pulses in Ionized Air

Merewether and Ezell recently reported a study of the electrical response of bare metallic cylinders to Compton current pulses in ionized air. They solved Maxwell´s equations by the method of finite differences. We have extended this study to insulated metallic cylinders, by representing the effect of a thin insulating layer by a boundary condition on the tangential electric field at the ionized air/insulator interface. This method is several orders of magnitude cheaper than the brute force method of using distance increments the thickness of the insulating layer. It is now economically feasible to study the response to a nuclear environment of the many military systems which are insulated by paint, polyethylene, concrete ablative layers or heat shields.