Development of affordable technologies for large X-ray simulators

Nuclear weapons effects simulators are large pulsed power installations for generating intense X-ray fluxes, which are used in testing the susceptibility and hardening of military systems in the radiation environment. These simulators are expensive because of the requirement for very high power pulsed output to drive radiation loads that can provide the necessary spectral and temporal characteristics of the X-radiation suitable for testing. During the past 40 years, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, as well as the Sandia National Laboratory, have developed pulsed power components and systems and improvements in load designs that are lowering the cost of X-ray simulators. The progress in pulsed power development encompasses elements from energy-storing capacitor banks to radiation loads and has led to the formulation of concept studies for future simulators with fewer components and with radiation loads as an integral part of the system.