[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

avalon goals

Some comments on avalon's goals, which, while interesting, may not be
realistic or properly formulated.

Design Goals:
    To enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest Tesla Coil in
the world.

... shouldn't be a problem, assuming Guinness will take the category...  How
will you define large? Power? Height? Diameter? Weight? How do you define
Tesla Coil? Commercial resonant transformer test sets run upwards of 10 MVA,
substantially larger than you plan for Avalon.  Height? Could I put up a 200
foot antenna mast with a top load and a looooong skinny coil, driven by a
100 Watt oscillator and call it the highest TC?

You begin to see the problems with specsmanship and superlatives....

    To enter the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest man made
electrical discharge.

I seriously doubt that ANY tesla coil conceivable will come close to large
pulsed discharges from lab impulse generators.  Its mostly a matter of
stored energy.. Impulse generators have been built that put MegaJoules into
a single impulse at several Megavolts to produce extremely long air sparks.

You also have the problem of competing against man triggered lightning,
which is a man-made electrical discharge, albeit using nature to store the
energy.  Either rocket borne wires or the newer laser ionization techniques
would be in this category.  And, in terms of sheer size, the electrical
discharge in the upper atmosphere  caused by thermonuclear high altitude
tests in the Teak series probably blows anything ground based away by orders
of magnitude.  We're talking significant EMP detected hundreds of miles away
in that case.  Finally, HAARP creates an artificial aurora of sorts by
pumping large amounts of RF power (somewhat less than a MW), and is steady
state and ground based.


    To produce consistent 100 feet long electrical discharges. This is
full-blown lightning.

This is not a particular challenge, in that it has been done by a fair
number of people.  I don't know that the research systems actually
approached 100 kJ/meter (typical of lightning) over 30 meter paths, but
certainly, 100 kJ per meter has been done (I've done it over pretty short
distances) and 30 meters has certainly been done, lots of times.

Jim Lux
phone:818/354-2075  fax:818/393-6875
Spacecraft Telecommunications Equipment Section
Jet Propulsion Laboratory   M/S 161-213
4800 Oak Grove
Pasadena CA 91109