An aerospace testing facility uses a high-voltage Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) simulator to test the lightning strike resilience of carbon-composite aircraft fuselages.
The simulator relies on a large capacitor bank to store the energy required to generate the high-intensity current pulses. When the capacitor bank is fully charged:
Calculate the total capacitance, CCC, of the capacitor bank.
Explain why the individual capacitors in the bank should be connected in parallel rather than in series to achieve this total capacitance.
The total stored energy must be discharged into the test fuselage in a pulse duration of less than 15 μs15\ \mu\text{s}15 μs.
Explain, using a calculation, why the simulator is powered by this capacitor bank instead of being connected directly to the facility's local diesel generator, which has a continuous power output of 3.6 MW3.6\text{ MW}3.6 MW.
In the research lab adjacent to the testing facility, a compact neutron generator operates using the following nuclear fusion reaction:
deuterium+tritium→helium-4+neutron \text{deuterium} + \text{tritium} \rightarrow \text{helium-4} + \text{neutron} deuterium+tritium→helium-4+neutronCalculate the number of these fusion reactions that must occur for the total nuclear energy released to equal the electrical energy stored in the EMP simulator's capacitor bank.
