Presentation to IEEE Electric Ship Technical Symposium (ESTS)

I presented my paper "Electromechanical Ballistic DC Breaker for Use on Ships" to ESTS on April 12. Here is the presentation I made, which was very well received. Although there are several known prior art methods to open a high current carrying DC circuit, none is sufficiently compact, economic, and reliable enough for deployment on ships. The US Navy (and many others) is interested in a DC grid architecture on board future ships, for many reasons, including weight savings, ease of interfacing with high power radars and directed energy weapons, and damage tolerance in battle; however these benefits are stymied by the lack of a simple yet effective DC circuit breaker.

This presentation lead to several new contacts which I am now following up on. Figure 1 of my paper shows the simplest version of my ballistic DC circuit breaker, which is based on a movable "breaker core" that slides between brushes to open the circuit.