Will Allow Testing Materials for Space: Six-Meter Pneumatic Gun Created for the SKIF Synchrotron

A pneumatic gun for testing materials in extreme conditions similar to those found in power plants, aviation, and space has been developed in Russia. The equipment was installed at the experimental station of the synchrotron source "Siberian Ring Photon Source" (SKIF) near Novosibirsk.

Pneumatic gun for experiments at SKIF

The development includes a high-pressure chamber and a low-pressure chamber, as well as a barrel. The chambers are separated by a metal membrane.

The length of the gun is 6 m. The speed of the striker at the exit from the barrel will reach 2 km/s.

When the compressor pumps the pressure up to 450 atmospheres, the striker flies out of the barrel and generates the necessary conditions for flat loading in the sample. At the same time, a high-speed X-ray detector records data on how shock-wave compression occurs.

The tests were 100% successful. We have reached the design speed, which is sufficient for conducting real experiments. All that remains is to accept the beam, and we will begin to obtain world-class results.
Alexey Studennikov, researcher at the Lavrentyev Institute of Hydrodynamics SB RAS

For experiments with the pneumatic gun, an ultra-fast pulsed X-ray shutter was also created, which protects the equipment from thermal and radiation loads. This shutter is capable of recording structural and chemical changes in the sample in less than one hundred nanoseconds.

SKIF will be the world's first generation 4+ synchrotron radiation source with an energy of 3 GeV.

Earlier www1.ru reported that Putin appreciated the creation of the SKIF center in Novosibirsk.

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