{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/23335"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/23335","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Study of advanced railgun hydrogen pellet injectors for fusion reactor refueling","abstract":"An advanced railgun system has been developed to assess its feasibility as a hypervelocity hydrogen pellet injector for magnetically confined plasmas. It consists of a pellet generator/gas gun assembly for freezing hydrogen pellets and injecting them into the railgun at velocities as high as 1.5 km/s. A plasma armature is formed by ionizing the low-Z propellant gas behind the pellet and firing the railgun. This fuseless operation prevents high-Z impurities from entering the reactor during pellet injection.","abstract_html":"An advanced railgun system has been developed to assess its feasibility as a hypervelocity hydrogen pellet injector for magnetically confined plasmas. It consists of a pellet generator/gas gun assembly for freezing hydrogen pellets and injecting them into the railgun at velocities as high as 1.5 km/s. A plasma armature is formed by ionizing the low-Z propellant gas behind the pellet and firing the railgun. This fuseless operation prevents high-Z impurities from entering the reactor during pellet injection.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["King, Tony Levone"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Electrical and Computer Engineering","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Kim, Kyekyoon"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T14:10:28Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T14:10:28Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:21Z","subjects":["Engineering, Electronics and Electrical","Physics, Electricity and Magnetism","Physics, Fluid and Plasma","Energy"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1994 King, Tony Levone"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9512429","(UMI)AAI9512429"],"render_values":[{"text":"AAI9512429","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"(UMI)AAI9512429","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/23335","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Kim, Kyekyoon"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["King, Tony Levone"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T14:10:28Z","10000-01-01","1994"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Electrical and Computer Engineering"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Engineering, Electronics and Electrical","Physics, Electricity and Magnetism","Physics, Fluid and Plasma","Energy"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1994 King, Tony Levone"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9512429","(UMI)AAI9512429","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/23335"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["An advanced railgun system has been developed to assess its feasibility as a hypervelocity hydrogen pellet injector for magnetically confined plasmas. It consists of a pellet generator/gas gun assembly for freezing hydrogen pellets and injecting them into the railgun at velocities as high as 1.5 km/s. A plasma armature is formed by ionizing the low-Z propellant gas behind the pellet and firing the railgun. This fuseless operation prevents high-Z impurities from entering the reactor during pellet injection.","The railgun system has several features that distinguish it from its predecessors, including: (1) a more compact, versatile pellet generator, (2) a new gas gun configuration that produces significantly higher pellet speeds, (3) a perforated coupling piece between the gas gun and railgun to prevent spurious arcing, and (4) ablation-resistant sidewalls, perforated sidewalls and transaugmentation to reduce inertial and viscous drag, the primary obstacles to achieving hypervelocity.","A unique system of sophisticated controls and diagnostics has been assembled to operate the railgun system and assess its performance, including fully automated pellet freezing and gas gun operation, an automatic timing circuit that is immune to mistriggering caused by pellet fragmentation or electromagnetic interference, a streak camera, photostations, light gates, current trans formers, B-dot probes, laser interferometry and optical spectroscopy.","Free-arc and hydrogen pellet experiments were conducted to evaluate various railgun designs. Transaugmented and simple railguns 1.2 and 2 m long were tested. The performances of railguns using Mullite, solid Lexan and perforated Lexan sidewalls were compared. The railgun theory of operation and anticipated losses are also examined. The theoretical predictions are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results.","The advanced railgun system has set several world records for bare hydrogen pellet velocity, including a 3.3 km/s shot on the 2 m gun, thus demonstrating that railguns are viable candidates for high speed pellet injection.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T14:10:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9512429.pdf: 3956555 bytes, checksum: fcc4f622c6c4bea00a753b1740a2b825 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1994","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T15:03:47Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:30:25-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Study of advanced railgun hydrogen pellet injectors for fusion reactor refueling"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Kim, Kyekyoon"],"dc:creator":["King, Tony Levone"],"dc:date":["2011-05-07T14:10:28Z","10000-01-01","1994"],"dc:description":["An advanced railgun system has been developed to assess its feasibility as a hypervelocity hydrogen pellet injector for magnetically confined plasmas. It consists of a pellet generator/gas gun assembly for freezing hydrogen pellets and injecting them into the railgun at velocities as high as 1.5 km/s. A plasma armature is formed by ionizing the low-Z propellant gas behind the pellet and firing the railgun. This fuseless operation prevents high-Z impurities from entering the reactor during pellet injection.","The railgun system has several features that distinguish it from its predecessors, including: (1) a more compact, versatile pellet generator, (2) a new gas gun configuration that produces significantly higher pellet speeds, (3) a perforated coupling piece between the gas gun and railgun to prevent spurious arcing, and (4) ablation-resistant sidewalls, perforated sidewalls and transaugmentation to reduce inertial and viscous drag, the primary obstacles to achieving hypervelocity.","A unique system of sophisticated controls and diagnostics has been assembled to operate the railgun system and assess its performance, including fully automated pellet freezing and gas gun operation, an automatic timing circuit that is immune to mistriggering caused by pellet fragmentation or electromagnetic interference, a streak camera, photostations, light gates, current trans formers, B-dot probes, laser interferometry and optical spectroscopy.","Free-arc and hydrogen pellet experiments were conducted to evaluate various railgun designs. Transaugmented and simple railguns 1.2 and 2 m long were tested. The performances of railguns using Mullite, solid Lexan and perforated Lexan sidewalls were compared. The railgun theory of operation and anticipated losses are also examined. The theoretical predictions are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results.","The advanced railgun system has set several world records for bare hydrogen pellet velocity, including a 3.3 km/s shot on the 2 m gun, thus demonstrating that railguns are viable candidates for high speed pellet injection.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T14:10:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9512429.pdf: 3956555 bytes, checksum: fcc4f622c6c4bea00a753b1740a2b825 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1994","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T15:03:47Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:30:25-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"],"dc:identifier":["AAI9512429","(UMI)AAI9512429","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/23335"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 1994 King, Tony Levone"],"dc:subject":["Engineering, Electronics and Electrical","Physics, Electricity and Magnetism","Physics, Fluid and Plasma","Energy"],"dc:title":["Study of advanced railgun hydrogen pellet injectors for fusion reactor refueling"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Electrical and Computer Engineering"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:21Z"}