SBIR-STTR Award

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.

Keywords:
Flux Compression, Pulsed Power, X-Ray Simulators, Decade Quad, Power Compression, Magnetic Flux, K-Shell Yield, Plasma Radiation Source

Starmark has teamed with Ktech Corporation and Sandia National Laboratories to demonstrate an enhancement of x-ray yield on the Decade Radiation Test Facility by means of electrically driven flux compression. The team will use novel stable “skinny-armature” and “inside-out” designs, which were developed and demonstrated successfully in Phase I. The demonstration will use wire-array cartridges custom made by Sandia to achieve pulse sharpening and current amplification on Decade. We will measure the performance enhancements of the cartridges in both static inductive loads and plasma radiation sources. The objective of the Phase II program is to achieve a yield capability of 80 kJ of Ar K-shell radiation and 50 kJ of Ti K-shell radiation on the Decade x-ray simulator by a simple, low-cost means. This objective is meant to demonstrate that flux compression can be a simple, robust, efficient, and reliable means to achieve pulse sharpening and power compression in Decade and next-generation machines. Results will be generalized for use in boosting electrical power and x-ray yields on existing and future x-ray simulators. ***A waiver request for the use in Phase II of Federal facilities is included in this proposal.