page_title: Explosively pumped flux compression generator
section_title: Hollow tube generators
hierarchical_section_title: Explosively pumped flux compression generator / The various types of generators / Hollow tube generators
context_page_description: An explosively pumped flux compression generator is a device used to generate a high-power electromagnetic pulse by compressing magnetic flux using high explosive.
  An EPFCG only ever generates a single pulse as the device is physically destroyed during operation. An EPFCG package that could be easily carried by a person can produce pulses in the millions of amperes and tens of terawatts. They require a starting current pulse to operate, usually supplied by capacitors.
  Explosively pumped flux compression generators are used to create ultrahigh magnetic fields in physics and materials science research and extremely intense pulses of electric current for pulsed power applications. They are being investigated as power sources for electronic warfare devices known as transient electromagnetic devices that generate an electromagnetic pulse without the costs, side effects, or enormous range of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse device.
  The first work on these generators was conducted by the VNIIEF center for nuclear research in Sarov in Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1950s followed by Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States.
context_section_description: In the spring of 1952, R. Z. Lyudaev, E. A. Feoktistova, G. A. Tsyrkov, and A. A. Chvileva undertook the first experiment with this type of generator, with the goal of obtaining a very high magnetic field.
  The MK-1 generator functions as follows:
  A longitudinal magnetic field is produced inside a hollow metallic conductor, by discharging a bank of capacitors into the solenoid that surrounds the cylinder. To ensure a rapid penetration of the field in the cylinder, there is a slit in the cylinder, which closes rapidly as the cylinder deforms;
  The explosive charge placed around the tube is detonated in a manner that ensures that the compression of the cylinder commences when the current through the solenoid is at its maximum;
  The convergent cylindrical shock wave unleashed by the explosion produces a rapid contraction (greater than 1 km/s) of the central cylinder, compressing the magnetic field, and creating an inductive current, as per the explanation above (the speed of contraction permits, to first approximation, the neglect of Joule losses and the consideration of the cylinder as a perfect conductor).
  The first experiments were able to attain magnetic fields of millions of gauss (hundreds of teslas), given an initial field of 30 kG (3 T) which is in the free space "air" the same as H = B/μ₀ = (3 Vₛ/m²) / (4π × 10⁻⁷ Vₛ/Am) = 2.387×10⁶ A/m (approximately 2.4 MA/m).
caption: Hollow tube generator.
exif: {}