Progress with small, high-magnetic-field spheromaks in CTX.

摘要

The current CTX program is directed towards using spheromaks as an energy transfer medium to accelerate metal plates to hypervelocity. In the proposed scheme, the spheromak is first compressed by accelerating a large plate to moderate velocity (3--5 km/s) with high explosives (HE). Another smaller plate is designed such that it experiences little force until the spheromak is compressed to a size comparable to the small plate. Then the force on the small plate rises quickly, accelerating this plate to high velocity. Present theoretical calculations indicate velocity gain of the small plate over the large plate as high as four, which could produce 20 km/s small plate velocity. In principle, the final velocity is limited only by the sound speed of the spheromak, and in practice, is probably limited by ohmic heating in the plate, the amount of energy that can be delivered to the large compression plate, and the energy dissipated by the spheromak during compression. Taking these effects into account, final velocities in the range 40--100 km/s might be achievable. 8 figs.