ANALYTICAL METHODS FOR PREDICTING TRANSIENT NUCLEAR RADIATION EFFECTS ON ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS AND DEVICES.

This method employs generalized radiation equivalent circuits for each component of the circuit or system. The component equivalent circuits are combined for circuit and system prediction using standard electrical engineering methods of circuit analysis, and the resulting circuit equations are solved on either an analog or digital computer. Four component equivalent circuits have been developed for use in circuit analysis. Detailed component equivalent circuits and their associated constants and circuit equations are presented for use in analyzing the behavior of these circuits in a generalized radiation environment. This method has been applied to the prediction of the response of four guidance and control circuits for flash X-ray, linac, and nuclear weapon environments, and of a simple servo loop for the flash X-ray and linac environments. The results of the prediction were compared with experimental results in the same environments. Within the scope of present knowledge of the component and environment variations, this comparison has resulted in excellent agreement for both the real time pulse shapes and the signal amplitude for radiation rates up to 10 to the 9th power rsec. Author