Energy Systems Institute

Walter J Sarjeant and Jennifer L Zirnheld

The Energy Systems Institute headed by Dr. Sarjeant is funded by U. S. Army, Sandia National Labs, and Office of Naval Research. Industrial collaborations include TPL, Inc., General Atomics – Electronic Systems, Inc., and AMBP Tech.

The diagram of typical energy system is shown as follows:

The issues in areas highlighted in red include fault tolerance and EMI/EMC; in blue, I rms and standby; in purple, I 2 t action, I pk (fault) and standby. Focusing on these critical areas, research activities in the Institute include:

U.S. Army –

• Mobility Power and Energy Management at the System Level

- Power partitioning for advanced/ diverse mobility platforms

• Flashover Robustness

- Supports flashover or induced flashover on power utility grid insulators and electronic countermeasures systems (completed)

• Low Energy Ignition/ Controlled Surface Fuzing

- Part of a green/ electric munitions effort by Picatinny

Sandia National Laboratory –

• High energy density ceramic capacitor program

- To develop capacitors for high rep-rate, high power and pulsed power applications. Show below are some capacitors developed by the Institute.

PHOTO TK FROM ORIGINAL DOC

Office of Naval Research –

• New and novel dielectric materials program for higher energy, dense, pulsed power capacitors

- Goal is to characterize new high dielectric constant materials

- Material development with industry

TPL, Inc. –

• Novel thin dielectric film assessment

- Develop thin films with high energy density

- 3-4 times better than current state-of-the-art

- Applications include aircraft launch defibulators, electric guns and armor, and ECM systems

GA-ESI –

• Evaluate new and novel technology for high energy density capacitors for commercial and military applications

AMBP –

• Develop and characterize high-stability fluroniated polymer carbon films for capacitor use. A sample under testing is shown below.

photo of sample testing

Dr. Walter J. Sarjeant received the William G. Dunbar Award at the 2004 IEEE International Power Modulator Conference in 2004. The citation reads: "For continuing contributions to high voltage research, development and education and for dedication to transferring that technology to the high voltage community."