[MLB-WIRELESS] US unveils chip-zapping 'lightning bomb' to tackle Saddam

[Cameron McCormack]

Toliman:
> "An FCG (Flux Compression Generator) is an astoundingly simple weapon. It 
> consists of an explosives-packed tube placed inside a slightly larger 
> copper coil. The instant before the chemical explosive is detonated, the 
> coil is energized by a bank of capacitors, creating a magnetic field. The 
> explosive charge detonates from the rear forward. As the tube flares 
> outward it touches the edge of the coil, thereby creating a moving short 
> circuit. "The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic 
> field while reducing the inductance of the stator [coil]," says Kopp. "The 
> result is that FCGs will produce a ramping current pulse, which breaks 
> before the final disintegration of the device. Published results suggest 
> ramp times of tens of hundreds of microseconds and peak currents of tens of 
> millions of amps." The pulse that emerges makes a lightning bolt seem like 
> a flashbulb by comparison."

Heh.. that guy (Carlo Kopp) was my Computer Architecture lecturer a
couple of years ago here at Monash.  He loves planes and weapons and all
things military like that. =)

-- 
Cameron McCormack
  // clm at csse.monash.edu.au
  // http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~clm/
  // icq 26955922

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