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<p>As the United States Navy continues to refine its designs for future ships, one approach that it is currently being explored is to use a unified electrical grid to power every system aboard a ship, including propulsion and weapons. Some concerns with this design are estimating the power demands placed upon the grid by various systems and anticipating transients induced on the grid by high power pulsed loads. The first part of this thesis will focus on the free electron laser (FEL). The FEL will require a substantial amount of power during an engagement; even at reduced levels of readiness, the FEL will still need residual amounts of power in order to fire the weapon in a reasonable amount of time. This thesis will present the power estimates of the FEL for five states of readiness, and will discuss the results of a computer model developed in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin. The second part of this thesis will focus on the electromagnetic railgun. Specifically I have developed of a model that simulates the charging and discharging an energy storage capacitor and will present the results.
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<br>Subjects: Physics; Laser weapons; Ships; Design</div>
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Pifer, Ryan James</div>
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