Demonstration of Electrically Driven Flux Compression

Starmark has teamed with the Naval Research Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories to demonstrate electrically driven flux compression (FC) on NRL's Hawk Pulsed Power Test Facility. The team will use novel stable "skinny-armature" and "inside-out" FC designs developed for DTRA by the Starmark key personnel. The feasibility experiments will use wire arrays custom made by Sandia to explore high-leverage, high-payoff approaches to achieving pulse sharpening and current amplification on Hawk. The objective of the Phase I program is to plan, prepare for, and execute a feasibility demonstration of FC on Hawk that will identify and focus efforts on the most promising concepts for Phase II implementation of FC on the Decade Quad (DQ) x-ray simulator. Anticipated products of the program include an assessment and conceptual designs of promising configurations and design options for FC generators on DQ. The team will work closely with the sponsoring agency to ensure that the program contributes to future investment decisions. Using FC for pulse sharpening on simulators like DQ promises potential savings of many tens of millions of dollars. ***A waiver request for the use in Phase I of Federal facilities at NRL and Sandia is included in this proposal.