Diaphragm Pressure Gauge

A phase I program establishing the feasibility of using a diaphragm pressure gauge (DPG) to measure the loads on a survivable shield that is an element of a debris mitigation system for Plasma Radiating Sources (PRS). These loads on a survivable shield have not been measured. DMS performance analyses have emphasized the criticality of such measurements. Simulator, e.g. Decade Half, performance is driven by DMS performance. This Phase II program will design, develop a DPG and demonstrate its capability to measure the displacement amplitude of a diaphragm that is loaded by PRS debris. The gauge is designed such that the displacement is directly proportional to load over the load range of interest. The displacement is measured using a fiber optic system that is radiation hard and immune to the electric-magnetic noise environments of PRS simulators. The failure threshold of existing survivable shields is estimated to be 400 taps. The phase I DPG was demonstrated to accurately measure loads from 25 to more than 1000 taps and to be immune to the simulator environments. The end product of the Phase II development program will be a fully developed and documented instrumentation system that can measure the incident loads on survivable shields and has been demonstrated in Decade Quad, Double Eagle, Saturn and Z.