Will electromagnetic bombs rule over near future?

              Nowadays people are becoming smart and even the technologies are becoming smart.  In these modern world the basic need for everyone other than food and shelter is electricity and internet connectivity.  That is the most important needs that comes right after the basics. Without them life is unimaginable nowadays.  As the oldest methods of weapon systems are easily detectable though it is undetectable the immune to those methods are already developed by all defense systems in case of emergency.  So there is in need of new weaponary system. 

            

             So if we let the electricity and all connectivity to digital network put out they might be a nightmare to opposite army base which leads to  deactivation of the electrical network which will induce further attack without any opposition.  This weapon system is called as electromagnetic bombs or e-bombs or EMP.

              High Power Electromagnetic Pulse generation techniques and High Power Microwave technology have matured to the point where practical E-bombs (Electromagnetic bombs) are becoming technically made ready, with new applications in both Strategic and Tactical Information Warfare. The development of conventional E-bomb devices allows their use in non-nuclear attacks. 

E-BOMB:
              An e-bomb (electromagnetic bomb) is a weapon that uses an intense electromagnetic field to create a big pulses of energy that affects electronic circuits without harming humans or buildings. At low levels, the pulse will temporarily disable electronics systems whereas  mid-range levels corrupt computer data. Very high levels completely destroy electronic circuitry, thus disabling any type of machine that uses electricity, including computers, radios, and ignition systems in vehicles. Although not directly very deadly or destructive, an e-bomb would devastate any target that relies upon electricity a category encompassing any potential military target and most civilian areas of the world as well.

              The concept behind the e-bomb is accidentally discovered  from a nuclear weaponry research in the 1950`s. When the U.S. military tested hydrogen bombs over the Pacific Ocean, streetlights were blown out hundreds of miles away and radio equipment was affected as far as away as Australia. Although at the time these effects were considered incidental, since that time researchers have sought a means of focusing that energy and found the emp`s.

BASIC IDEA:

• THE EMP EFFECT:

                    The electromagnetic pulse is production of a very short (hundreds of nanoseconds) but intense electromagnetic pulse, which propagates away from its source with ever diminishing intensity, governed by the theory of electromagnetism. The ElectroMagnetic Pulse is in effect an electromagnetic shock wave.

                    This pulse of energy produces a powerful electromagnetic field, particularly within the vicinity of the weapon burst. The field can be sufficiently strong to produce short lived transient voltages of thousands of Volts (ie kiloVolts) on exposed electrical conductors, such as wires, or conductive tracks on printed circuit boards, where exposed.

• Electric current generates magnetic field and changing magnetic field in turn generates a current.
• An intense fluctuating magnetic field can produce a large amount of current which can burn low power semi conductor devices.

DESIGNING OF E-BOMB:

1. FLUX COMPRESSION GENERATOR(FCG)METHOD
2. VIRTUAL CATHODE OSCILLATOR(VIRCATOR)METHOD

FLUX COMPRESSION GENERATOR METHOD:
            The explosively pumped FCG is the most mature technology applicable to bomb designs. The FCG was first demonstrated by Clarence Fowler at Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) in the late fifties.

             The FCG is a device capable of producing electrical energies of tens of MegaJoules in tens to hundreds of microseconds of time, in a relatively compact package. With peak power levels of the order of TeraWatts to tens of TeraWatts, FCGs may be used directly, or as one shot pulse power supplies for microwave tubes. To place this in perspective, the current produced by a large FCG is between ten to a thousand times greater than that produced by a typical lightning stroke [WHITE78].

             The central idea behind the construction of FCGs is that of using a fast explosive to rapidly compress a magnetic field, transferring much energy from the explosive into the magnetic field.

             The initial magnetic field in the FCG prior to explosive initiation is produced by a start current. The start current is supplied by an external source, such a a high voltage capacitor bank, a smaller FCG or an MHD device. In principle, any device capable of producing a pulse of electrical current of the order of tens of kiloAmperes to MegaAmperes will be suitable.

              In a typical coaxial FCG , a cylindrical copper tube forms the armature. This tube is filled with a fast high energy explosive. A number of explosive types have been used, ranging from B and C-type compositions to machined blocks of PBX-9501. The armature is surrounded by a helical coil of heavy wire, typically copper, which forms the FCG stator. The stator winding is in some designs split into segments,to optimise the electromagnetic inductance of the armature coil.

             The intense magnetic forces produced during the operation of the FCG could cause the device to disintegrate prematurely if not dealt with. This is typically accomplished by the addition of a structural jacket of a non-magnetic material. Materials such as concrete or Fibreglass in an Epoxy matrix have been used. In principle, any material with suitable electrical and mechanical properties could be used. In applications where weight is an issue, such as air delivered bombs or missile warheads, a glass or Kevlar Epoxy composite is mostly used.

• capacitors connects to stator→which sets electric current through wires→Generates intense magnetic field.
• Fuse mechanism ignites the explosive material→Explosion travels as waves through middle of the armature cylinder.
• Explosion passes through cylinder→cylinder comes in contact with stator winding→creates a short circuit→cuts the stator off from its power supply.
• Moving short circuit compresses magnetic field→generates intense electromagnetic burst.

            The explosive is initiated when the start current peaks.  This is usually accomplished with explosive.  The explosive lense plane wave generator which produces a uniform plane wave burn front in the explosive.  Once initiated the front part propagates through the explosive in the armature, distorting it into a conical shape.  Where the armature has already expanded to the full diameter of stator, it forms a short circuit between the current within the device.  The propagating short has the effect of compressing the magnetic field, while reducing the inductance of the stator winding.  The result is that such generators will produce a ramping current pulse, which peaks before the final disintegration of the devicen releasing peak currents of tens of Mega Amperes and peak energies of megajoules.

VITRCATOR METHOD:
       
                         Though FCG`S are very successful technology base for generation of the large electric pulses, the output of the FCG`s is mostly below 10MHz which will be difficult to attack even with this much high power.  A high power microwave device(HPM) device overcomes this problem by rather than focusing on the frequency output the vitrcator method focus on energy output  Many target sets will be difficult to attack even with very high power levels at such frequencies and also when considering power output the results are pathetic.  The VITRCATOR method  thus overcomes FCG outrages as its output power may be tightly focused and it has a much better ability to couple energy into many target types.

                       The fundamental idea behind the Vircator is that when accelerating a high current electron beam against a mesh (or foil) anode. Many electrons will pass through the anode, forming a bubble of space charge behind the anode. Under the necessary conditions, this space charge region will oscillate at microwave frequencies. If the space charge region is placed into a resonant cavity which is appropriately tuned, very high peak powers might be achieved. Conventional microwave engineering techniques may then be used to extract microwave power from the resonant cavity. Because the frequency of oscillation is dependent upon the electron beam parameters, Vircators are tuned in such a way that it can tolerate the appropriate mode of the microwave cavity. Power levels achieved in Vircator experiments range from 170 kiloWatts to 40 GigaWatts over frequencies spanning the decimetric and centimetric bands.

• The principle of VIRCATOR is that of accelerating high current electron  beam against mesh anode.
• Many electron will pass through the anode forming a bubble of space charge behind the anode
• this space charge region will oscillate at microwave frequencies.  If the space charge region is  placed into resonant cavity which is approximately tuned, very high peak powers can be achieved.

BOMB LAYOUT:

• ARMATURE-coppertube/fast explosive
• Stator-helical heavy wire coil
• initiator-plane wave explosive lens
• jacket-prevents disintegration of rocket due to magnetic forces

MODES OF DETONATION:

1. cruise missile
2. conventional aircraft
3. air to air missile and many more...

MAXIMIZING BOMB`S DESTRUCTIVE POWER(lethality):

• The first step in maximising bomb lethality is is to maximise the peak power and duration of the radiation of the weapon.
• The second step is to maximise the coupling efficiency into the target set.

ITS EFFECT:
            It would temporarily jam electronics systems, more intense pulses would corrupt important computer data and very powerful bursts would completely fry electrical and electronics equipments
AN E BOMB CAN EFFECTIVELY NEUTRALIZE:

• vehicle control system
• communication systems
• navigation systems
• long and short ranged sensors.
• and most of the electronic components

DEFENSE AGAINST E-BOMB:
            Though the e-bomb is destructive there are ways to prevent electronic components from being destroyed which include:

1. Using faraday cages were important communication setup is maintained
2. using optical fiber cables for data
3. using transient arrestors for power sources
4. using electomagnetic air lock
5. shielding must be mandatory

                  Thus as seen on many films the emp`s are told to be existed in many country`s army today but the accurate data cannot be published as for the safety concern. Almost all of them are  willing that there might not be a world war again. If happens the world will perish.  So we keep on developing technologies for the safety concern.  But there might be a possibility of terrorist attack with these bombs but the respective governments are increasing their national defense which will not be a disastrous one.


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About Sooriyamathy

This blog is created to explain people the concepts, which they are finding difficult to understand in electrical and electronics world. This blog also post stuff related to stargazing.