Appendix 7.7
PULSED POWER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
REPORT TO NPSS ADCOM
3 March 2001
Annapolis, MD
Prepared by Peter J. Turchi
The Pulsed Power Science and Technology (PPS&T) Committee has
principal responsibility for the professional interests of the pulsed electrical power
community.
As such, it is focused on mechanisms for collecting and
disseminating information in the areas related to the science and technical
realization of pulsed power systems. These mechanisms include the bi-annual
IEEE International Pulsed Power Conferences, the proceedings of these
conferences and special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science.
The following report summarizes the status of our efforts within these
mechanisms:
Special Issue on Pulsed Power Science and Technology:
The Special Issue on Pulsed Power Science and Technology for the IEEE
Transactions on Plasma Science (Steve Sampayan and Hugh Kirbie, eds.) has
been published (Vol. 28, No. 5 October 2000). This special issue comprised 62
papers and 350 pages on pulsed power, covering pulsed power systems,
switching, components, commercial applications, high power microwaves,
accelerators and beams.
Pulse Power Plasma Sciences Conference 2001, Las Vegas, NV, 17-22 June
2001:
Pulsed Power Plasma Science-2001 (PPPS-2001) is a combination of the
28th IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS) and the 13 th
IEEE International Pulsed Power Conference (PPC). This joint Conference will
be held June 17-22, 2001, at the Rio Suite Hotel and Convention Center in Las
Vegas, Nevada, USA. Located a short walk from the vibrant Las Vegas Strip, it
will showcase the many timely research breakthroughs and opportunities in the
fields of pulsed power and plasma science.
Both ICOPS and PPC are highly successful NPSS Conferences with longstanding traditions, and each has a core of loyal attendees. The decision to
combine them in 2001 was made several years ago as a one-time experiment to
evaluate the merit of someday merging the two meetings. Given the significant
overlap of participants between the two meetings, it was suggested that the
majority of each conference’s topical areas would be of interest to the other
conference’s attendees. More importantly, the trends toward shrinking travel
budgets and burgeoning numbers of meetings would make joint meetings
increasingly popular for our members and their institutions.
Creating this blend of ICOPS and PPC required some modifications to the
traditional procedures of both conferences. Last June, ICOPS-goers were
surprised to receive a “First Call” for PPPS-2001, a PPC tradition, while PPC
regulars were recently surprised to receive the color glossy brochure that is so
familiar to ICOPS. Similarly, both ICOPSers and PPCers were both treated to a
completely new technical topic list that combined and sharpened the traditional
topics of each conference. In addition, with an expected combined attendance of
about 1000 and nearly that many papers, the Conference will be extended to 41/2 days, compared to the 3-4 days familiar to both ICOPS and PPC.
PPPS-2001 will completely integrate papers submitted to ICOPS or PPC
in those technical areas where such integration makes sense. We have adopted
the ICOPS model for organizing the technical program with eight technical area
coordinators responsible for the principal technology areas. The only significant
functional difference between the two conferences historically is that PPC has a
published proceedings, while ICOPS does not. This distinction will be retained in
the 2001 Conference. Attendees will have the option of registering for either
ICOPS or the PPC, with the ONLY difference being that PPC registrants (for a
higher fee) will have their paper published in and will receive a copy of the
proceedings.
Presently, we have received 850 abstracts, which the Technical Program
Committee is reviewing and arranging. This suggests that attendance at the
conference will readily exceed a thousand scientists and engineers and a
comparable number of accompanying persons.
In addition to the 4-1/2 day technical program, two minicourses will be
offered: Pulsed Power: The lectures given in this course will focus on some of
the most exciting and promising research areas currently active in the pulsed
power arena, including medical and environmental applications and
requirements, explosive to pulsed electrical energy conversion and applications,
ultrashort pulse generation and repetitive operation, and power conditioning and
compact system design. The lecturers will include Kris Kristiansen, Jim Dickens,
and Mike Giesselman of Texas Tech University and Karl Schoenbach of Old
Dominion University.
POC: Professor Magne Kristiansen, Texas Tech
University, krisk@coe.ttu.edu. Innovative Vacuum Electronics: This course will
cover state-of-the-art issues relating to present-day advances in the field of
microwave vacuum electronic devices (MVEDs). It will include presentations by
leading US university research groups in the field of vacuum electronics. The
lecturers will include Neville Luhmann of UC-Davis, John Booske of Wisconsin,
Victor Granatstein of Maryland, Glenn Scheitrum of Stanford, Rick Temkin of
MIT, and Ron Gilgenbach of Michigan. Their combined presentations will give a
concise overview of the research underway throughout the DoD's "Innovative
Vacuum Electronics" MURI Program. Poster papers will also be available for
participants to view the details. POC: John Booske, University of Wisconsin,
booske@engr.wisc.edu.
Neither ICOPS nor PPC have included industrial exhibits in recent
years, because each conference, by itself, was judged to be too small to attract
and support a useful array of exhibitors. PPPS-2001 with its anticipated much
larger attendance, should be very attractive to potential exhibitors, representing a
unique opportunity for vendors to meet with the pulsed power and plasma
science communities together. Initial response has been most encouraging; we
anticipate that this will represent an attractive aspect of the PPPS-2001
experiment.
As a means of getting folks together to renew old acquaintances and
make new ones there will be receptions on the evenings of Sunday and Monday,
June 17, in the Rio. In addition, on Tuesday evening there will be a special
reception, hosted by Maxwell Laboratories, honoring our foreign participants,
who represent a growing fraction of the attendance of both ICOPS and PPC.
These receptions will all begin early enough to allow people to attend and still
catch an evening show.
Formal award presentations, including the Plasma Science and
Application Award as well as the Erwin Marx and Peter Haas Pulsed Power
awards will be made at the Conference banquet at the Rio Convention Center on
Wednesday evening. The Award lectures will be presented as plenary talks in
the technical sessions.
The PPPS-2001 experiment represents a unique opportunity to bring the
plasma science and pulsed power communities together, and we believe that our
social program, together with the unique opportunities of Las Vegas, will make
this conference an experience to be remembered. Further information is
available on our website (www.ieee.org/ppps2001) or by contacting the following:
PPC General Chair: Bob Reinovsky, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
bobr@lanl.gov, ICOPS General Chair: Tom Hussey, Air Force Research
Laboratory, thomas.hussey@kirtland.af.mil, PPC Program Chair: Mark Newton,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, newton6@llnl.gov, ICOPS Program
Chair: Bob Barker, Air Force Office of Scientific Research,
robert.barker@afosr.af.mil, Conference Administrator: Janet Neff-Shampine, Los
Alamos National Laboratory, neff@lanl.gov.
Resolution of Erwin Marx Award Issue:
Last year, IEEE received a letter from Dr. Hermann Maier, a biographer of
Erwin Marx, expressing concern that we were providing an award named for a
former member of the Nazi party. IEEE established a committee to review the
question of the appropriateness of this award as named and the more general
question of IEEE awards that carry names of individuals. The PPS&T Committee
also spent considerable time and correspondence considering the matter of the
name of our principal award for technical contributions to pulsed power science
and technology. After obtaining the opinions of our committee members, the
views of previous winners of the Erwin Marx Award, and information from
colleagues in Germany, the PPS&T Committee voted to retain the name Erwin
Marx for this award. Based on the information and opinions we gathered and its
own study, the IEEE committee also recommended that the name should stand.
It appears that, while Erwin Marx was indeed a member of the Nazi party, he did
not participate in crimes or atrocities of the regime and, furthermore he was reinstated in his university position shortly after the war. (We learned that there was
actually a graduated-scale of war-time activities used in the Allied program for
post-war de-nazification of Germany.) It appeared from some of the
correspondence from German colleagues that Dr. Maier may have his own
agenda in raising these issues. In any event, our award is named for Erwin Marx
in light of his technical contributions to pulsed power technology, not for his
political views or life style.
Other PPS&T Activities:
At our committee meeting on 14 September 2000 in Albuquerque, NM, it
was tentatively decided to hold the 13th IEEE International Pulsed Power
Conference (PPC 2003) in Texas during June 2003, hosted by Texas Tech
University. Subsequent arrangements were approved by an e-mail vote of the
committee, allowing Prof. Michael Giesselmann of Texas Tech to proceed with
initial arrangements. He will make a presentation on these arrangements at our
next committee meeting. (Among other matters, we will check for conflicts with
other meetings.)
The next PPS&T Committee meeting will occur on 8 March 2001 in
Albuquerque.