Barium Cloud Growth and Striation in a Conducting Background

Abstract

Previous calculations of barium cloud growth failed to give reasonable estimates of striation scale size and onset time because they either assumed no ionospheric end-shorting or no ion diffusion (all modes unstable) or strong shorting (all modes stable). The authors derive a set of equations which include finite end-shorting and solve by a new numerical technique. For moderate end-shorting (in the experimental range) a fastest growing mode of reasonable size on the rear of the cloud is obtained. The growth rates and instability range are very sensitive to the end-shorting and magnitude of the ambient electric field. There is no growth below a critical value of E or above a critical value of the shorting. A series of graphs are presented. The authors also derive most previous results as special cases of our equations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1972
Accession Number
AD0761828

Entities

People

  • Albert Simon
  • Jeng-nan Shiau

Organizations

  • University of Rochester

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Air Force
  • Coefficients
  • Contracts
  • Differential Equations
  • Diffusion
  • Diffusion Coefficient
  • Electric Fields
  • Electrons
  • Equations
  • Instability
  • Ionosphere
  • Ions
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Partial Differential Equations
  • Security
  • Striations

Readers

  • Plasma Physics / Magnetohydrodynamics