Miniature Explosive Pulsed Power for Missiles and Munitions

The proposed effort extends work recently completed (in 2003) at the University of Missouri – Rolla (UMR) and at Texas A&M University (TAMU) under the “Explosive-Driven Power Generation for Directed-Energy Munitions,” Topic 11 of the DoD FY 98 Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI II). It also leverages the current efforts by Loki in FCG development under an Army SBIR Explosive Pulsed Power Project (Contract W9113M-04-P-0016). The Principal Investigators (PIs) at each of these institutes are currently the Loki PI, Co-PI, and the PI for the subcontractor, Ktech Corporation. We also intend to leverage the current Loki efforts to create a successful entirely explosive-driven FCG system, utilizing an explosive-driven Ferromagnetic Generator (FMG) to establish the seed current required by an FCG for operation. We are aware of no existing compact, autonomous, completely explosive high power system based on an FMG seed source for an FCG apart from the Loki system. At the successful completion of the proposed work, we will have constructed hydrodynamic models of FCG processes, and tested FCGs to check the results from those models. As higher-performance explosives become available, we may evaluate their use in FCGs.