China has created the world’s first microwave weapon powered by Stirling engines
A group of Chinese scientists reported on the development and testing of powerful microwave weapons to destroy drones, airplanes and even satellites. But the most amazing thing is that the electricity for it is generated by four Stirling engines installed on the truck. As a result, the combat platform consumes only 20% of the power required to power alternative energy weapons and can operate continuously for four hours.
This is the first public announcement of the creation of a combat microwave system powered by Stirling engines. In China, Stirling engines are being developed for power generation in space and confined spaces, for example, for submarines. These engines operate with a closed volume of the working body and are able to use any external heat for this purpose.
In the case of a microwave gun or emitter, four compact Stirling engines mounted on a vehicle platform not only generate electricity, but also work as a refrigerator, removing heat from the superconducting coil, the heart of the weapon. The coil generates an electromagnetic field with a strength of up to 4 Tesla. This is 68,000 times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field and only half as strong as the one in the bowels of the Large Hadron Collider. The stability and power of the electromagnetic field generated by the superconducting coil is the key to the regular operation of such weapons.
The limitation for the operation of Stirling engines was a rather high permissible lower cooling limit. This is how they stop working when it’s 40-50 °C below zero. To combine the motors with a superconducting magnetic coil, we had to select materials with high-temperature superconductivity for its winding. In particular, a tape made of ReBCO (rare earth barium-copper oxide) material was suitable.
The nuance is that China bought this American-made tape. In 2018, the US government imposed a ban on the supply of these products to China, and therefore we had to create our own production of this material. In China, this was done by Shanghai Superconductor. In less than two years, it alone was able to produce 400 km of tape annually, which is in demand for a whole range of applications from weapons to reactors and maglevs. By the end of 2024, the production capacity will be increased to 2000 km per year. According to Chinese sources, American companies have started buying this tape from China, abandoning suppliers from the US and other countries.
The scientists reported their achievement in the development of microwave weapons based on Stirling engines in an article in the journal High Power Laser and Particle Beams. A joint team from the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology in Xi’an and the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing was responsible for the development. The installation is far from perfect, the developers admit. However, it works and can be improved.
