Design Overview
Compact Torus Formation and Acceleration
1. The solenoid bank fires setting up a magnetic field in the CT formation region.
2. The gas valves injects gas into the gap between the outer and inner electrodes, across which a voltage of 20 kV has been applied.
3. Spontaneous ionization of the gas occurs resulting a magnetized plasma that completes the railgun circuit and begins to discharge the formation capacitor bank.
4. After a delay of a few microseconds, time for the CT to separate from the formation region, the acceleration bank discharges and the Compact Toroid is accelerated to a velocity of 200 km/s in a span of 1.5 meters and about 10 microseconds. The delay is created passively using a Metglas saturable inductor which allows rapid firing of CTIX with no active switching.
Learn more about what a compact torus (CT) is …
