Noob EMP question

[Kase]

OK....this maybe a completely ignorant question, but I can't find an answer anywhere.

I've just begun reading the book "Lights Out", which is of course about an EMP situation.

In the book they talk of how all earlier deisel vehicles will run because they do not use any spark to ignite(makes sense)

But my question is, if an EMP hit, wouldn't it fry the starter or any other of the ignition componants? I can see maybe push starting a deisel vehicle, but not just turning the key and it starting right up. So if I'm wrong here, someone please educate me on why an EMP would not mess up any of the ignition componants. Maybe I'm just missing something here??

 

[E5RANGER375]

noob answer:

I dont think that an EMP would knock out as much as what that book leads you to believe. if people are that worried about it then you can ground your vehicle to itself and then to ground every time you park it and boom, problem solved.

 

[jeremy]

OK....this maybe a completely ignorant question, but I can't find an answer anywhere.

I've just begun reading the book "Lights Out", which is of course about an EMP situation.

In the book they talk of how all earlier deisel vehicles will run because they do not use any spark to ignite(makes sense)

But my question is, if an EMP hit, wouldn't it fry the starter or any other of the ignition componants? I can see maybe push starting a deisel vehicle, but not just turning the key and it starting right up. So if I'm wrong here, someone please educate me on why an EMP would not mess up any of the ignition componants. Maybe I'm just missing something here??

First off this is pinned above, read through it...

Second has your car ever quit working when you have driven by a TV/Radio Stations transmitter?! No you say congrats your car will probably survive an EMP...

 

[Kase]

First off this is pinned above, read through it...

Second has your car ever quit working when you have driven by a TV/Radio Stations transmitter?! No you say congrats your car will probably survive an EMP...

Thats interesting. I never knew that. Ya the book pretty much sets it out like an EMP would be the end of everything electronic that exists.

But in a hypathetical situation.....if the emp was EXTREMELY bad and killed your gas motor, it would probably just as well take out a deisel right?

 

[E5RANGER375]

the part it supposedly takes out is the computer and other small sensitive circuitry. I think smaller things like cell phone towers, radios, watches, etc, are more likely to fail than cars unless you are at the epicenter, in which case your not gonna have to wory about anything ever again anyways.

this is not my area of expertise by any means, so do further research. i think there is a ton of info about EMP's online from true experts.

 

[jeremy]

Thats interesting. I never knew that. Ya the book pretty much sets it out like an EMP would be the end of everything electronic that exists.

Only in Hollywood...

The Only devices that are likely to be effected would be the same ones effected during a Lightening Strike. Pretty much only anything plugged into the Grid...

But in a hypathetical situation.....if the emp was EXTREMELY bad and killed your gas motor, it would probably just as well take out a deisel right?

If you are that close to the Event, then you possibly have larger Problems than if my Car will not run...

 

[indykid]

Having worked in the industry, I can tell you that the majority of vehicle ECMs (Electronic Control Modules) for both the engine and transmission are hardened against EMPs. The only thing an EMP would truly hurt is anything hooked up to the electric grid that isn't protected.

 

[CarmelHP]

The more serious problem is if the EMP blows the big transformers on the grid. There are very few spare ones around and they have a long manufacturing lead time and very small manufacturing base making it tough to keep the lights on if even couple go down.

 

[Marc]

noob answer:

I dont think that an EMP would knock out as much as what that book leads you to believe. if people are that worried about it then you can ground your vehicle to itself and then to ground every time you park it and boom, problem solved.

or disconnect the battery and turn your lights on and leave them on for 5 minutes,

the point of turning your lights on after disconnecting the battery is that it drains the charge stored in then ecu therefore an emp can not fry the electronics because an emp effects electricity, the emp acts like a power surge which over loads the electronics so an object with no electricity is not effected. kinda like in the movie in the war of the worlds how he could start the van cause the mechanic disconnected the battery to install the starter and the lightning storm started and gave off an emp to kill all the electricity and then he finished the van when the storm was over and it could start due to the battery wasnt hooked up. i know for a fact this method works on removing all electricity from a vehicle cause thats how i clear the codes on my truck.




the best emp produced is by nuclear weapons

Nuclear Weapon EMP Effects

A high-altitude nuclear detonation produces an immediate flux of gamma rays from the nuclear reactions within the device. These photons in turn produce high energy free electrons by Compton scattering at altitudes between (roughly) 20 and 40 km. These electrons are then trapped in the Earths magnetic field, giving rise to an oscillating electric current. This current is asymmetric in general and gives rise to a rapidly rising radiated electromagnetic field called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Because the electrons are trapped essentially simultaneously, a very large electromagnetic source radiates coherently. The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. The first recorded EMP incident accompanied a high-altitude nuclear test over the South Pacific and resulted in power system failures as far away as Hawaii. A large device detonated at 400-500 km over Kansas would affect all of CONUS. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point.
The EMP produced by the Compton electrons typically lasts for about 1 microsecond, and this signal is called HEMP. In addition to the prompt EMP, scattered gammas and inelastic gammas produced by weapon neutrons produce an intermediate time signal from about 1 microsecond to 1 second. The energetic debris entering the ionosphere produces ionization and heating of the E-region. In turn, this causes the geomagnetic field to heave, producing a late-time magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) EMP generally called a heave signal.
Initially, the plasma from the weapon is slightly conducting; the geomagnetic field cannot penetrate this volume and is displaced as a result. This impulsive distortion of the geomagnetic field was observed worldwide in the case of the STARFISH test. To be sure, the size of the signal from this process is not large, but systems connected to long lines (e.g., power lines, telephone wires, and tracking wire antennas) are at risk because of the large size of the induced current. The additive effects of the MHD-EMP can cause damage to unprotected civilian and military systems that depend on or use long-line cables. Small, isolated, systems tend to be unaffected. Military systems must survive all aspects of the EMP, from the rapid spike of the early time events to the longer duration heave signal. One of the principal problems in assuring such survival is the lack of test data from actual high-altitude nuclear explosions. Only a few such experiments were carried out before the LTBT took effect, and at that time the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of HEMP was relatively poor. No high-altitude tests have been conducted by the United States since 1963. In addition to the more familiar high-yield tests mentioned above, three small devices were exploded in the Van Allen belts as part of Project Argus. That experiment was intended to explore the methods by which electrons were trapped and traveled along magnetic field lines.
The acid test of the response of modern military systems to EMP is their performance in simulators, particularly where a large number of components are involved. So many cables, pins, connectors, and devices are to be found in real hardware that computation of the progress of the EMP signal cannot be predicted, even conceptually, after the field enters a real system. System failures or upsets will depend upon the most intricate details of current paths and interior electrical connections, and one cannot analyze these beforehand. Threat-level field illumination from simulators combined with pulsed-current injection are used to evaluate the survivability of a real system against an HEMP threat. The technology to build simulators with risetimes on the order of 10 ns is well known. This risetime is, however, longer than that of a real HEMP signal. Since 1986 the United States has used a new EMP standard which requires waveforms at threat levels having risetimes under a few nanoseconds. Threat-level simulators provide the best technique for establishing the hardness of systems against early-time HEMP. They are, however, limited to finite volumes (aircraft, tanks, communications nodes) and cannot encompass an extended system. For these systems current injection must be used. HEMP can pose a serious threat to military systems when even a single high-altitude nuclear explosion occurs. In principle, even a new nuclear proliferator could execute such a strike. In practice, however, it seems unlikely that such a state would use one of its scarce warheads to inflict damage which must be considered secondary to the primary effects of blast, shock, and thermal pulse. Furthermore, a HEMP attack must use a relatively large warhead to be effective (perhaps on the order of one mega-ton), and new proliferators are unlikely to be able to construct such a device, much less make it small enough to be lofted to high altitude by a ballistic missile or space launcher. Finally, in a tactical situation such as was encountered in the Gulf War, an attack by Iraq against Coalition forces would have also been an attack by Iraq against its own communications, radar, missile, and power systems. EMP cannot be confined to only one side of the burst.
Source Region Electro-magnetic Pulse [SREMP] is produced by low-altitude nuclear bursts. An effective net vertical electron current is formed by the asymmetric deposition of electrons in the atmosphere and the ground, and the formation and decay of this current emits a pulse of electromagnetic radiation in directions perpendicular to the current. The asymmetry from a low-altitude explosion occurs because some electrons emitted downward are trapped in the upper millimeter of the Earths surface while others, moving upward and outward, can travel long distances in the atmosphere, producing ionization and charge separation. A weaker asymmetry can exist for higher altitude explosions due to the density gradient of the atmosphere. Within the source region, peak electric fields greater than 10 5 V/m and peak magnetic fields greater than 4,000 A/m can exist. These are much larger than those from HEMP and pose a considerable threat to military or civilian systems in the affected region. The ground is also a conductor of electricity and provides a return path for electrons at the outer part of the deposition region toward the burst point. Positive ions, which travel shorter distances than electrons and at lower velocities, remain behind and recombine with the electrons returning through the ground. Thus, strong magnetic fields are produced in the region of ground zero. When the nuclear detonation occurs near to the ground, the SREMP target may not be located in the electromagnetic far field but may instead lie within the electro-magnetic induction region. In this regime the electric and magnetic fields of the radiation are no longer perpendicular to one another, and many of the analytic tools with which we understand EM coupling in the simple plane-wave case no longer apply. The radiated EM field falls off rapidly with increasing distance from the deposition region (near to the currents the EMP does not appear to come from a point source). As a result, the region where the greatest damage can be produced is from about 3 to 8 km from ground zero. In this same region structures housing electrical equipment are also likely to be severely damaged by blast and shock. According to the third edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, by S. Glasstone and P. Dolan, the threat to electrical and electronic systems from a surface-burst EMP may extend as far as the distance at which the peak overpressure from a 1-megaton burst is 2 pounds per square inch.
One of the unique features of SREMP is the high late-time voltage which can be produced on long lines in the first 0.1 second. This stress can produce large late-time currents on the exterior shields of systems, and shielding against the stress is very difficult. Components sensitive to magnetic fields may have to be specially hardened. SREMP effects are uniquely nuclear weapons effects.
During the Cold War, SREMP was conceived primarily as a threat to the electronic and electrical systems within hardened targets such as missile launch facilities. Clearly, SREMP effects are only important if the targeted systems are expected to survive the primary damage-causing mechanisms of blast, shock, and thermal pulse. Because SREMP is uniquely associated with nuclear strikes, technology associated with SREMP generation has no commercial applications. However, technologies associated with SREMP measurement and mitigation are commercially interesting for lightning protection and electromagnetic compatibility applications. Basic physics models of SREMP generation and coupling to generic systems, as well as numerical calculation, use unclassified and generic weapon and target parameters. However, codes and coupling models which reveal the response and vulnerability of current or future military systems are militarily critical.
​

 

[sbcman]

When the one went off in Ocean's 11, everything went down, even cars. So be prepared- buy a bicycle.

 

[warangelcometh]

Congrats on reading the book. I just finished it - a couple of weeks ago and it was freakin awesome!!! I was wondering the same things when I first read it so thanks for asking the question.

 

[Marc]

When the one went off in Ocean's 11, everything went down, even cars. So be prepared- buy a bicycle.

lol

 

[Kase]

Congrats on reading the book. I just finished it - a couple of weeks ago and it was freakin awesome!!! I was wondering the same things when I first read it so thanks for asking the question.

I'm not real far along in it yet, but it's starting off kinda slow

Hopefully it will pick up some and grab my attention a little more lol. I can be sorta A.D.D. sometimes

 

[indykid]

I heard that EMPs will affect M16s/AR-15s but not Kalashnikov variants!!!!!!

 

[ThrottleJockey]

Let's start with a primer on what an "ignition" is since you seem to have it wrong. The "ignition" in a vehicle is things like the coil, spark plugs, Ignition control module, distributor and many other electronic parts that time and create the spark. With a diesel the "ignition" is created by compression, so no a diesel engine (older versions) doesn't have an ignition. Newer diesel engines are "drive by wire" and controlled entirely from the ECM or computer. I find it unlikely that an EMP would effect the starter, but just in case you could always find one with an air starter. It is similar to an electric starter except it is powered by compressed air instead of electricity, they are most commonly found in VERY cold climates where batteries where unreliable at best. Another solution would be to buy a vehicle from before 1981 that doesn't rely on a computer or electronic ignition and keep a spare set of points in the glove box to be installed after the EMP and you should be fine. Odds are even with a diesel it will have to be at least this old to make any difference anyways.

 

[HighStrung]

I'm not real far along in it yet, but it's starting off kinda slow

Hopefully it will pick up some and grab my attention a little more lol. I can be sorta A.D.D. sometimes

I felt the exact same way, I had a pretty hard time getting into the book in general. I had recently read "One Second After" which I thought was amazing, at first I was a little let down with the way this got going. By the beginning-middle things picked up and held my attention from their on. Ending could have been a little stronger, but I was happy with it still. You'll enjoy this, keep reading.

 

[Rocket57]

Hollyweird. If the EMP source is a nuke you've got bigger things to worry about

 

[Marc]

Hollyweird. If the EMP source is a nuke you've got bigger things to worry about

i would agree but, haven't you seen the movie broken arrow??? lol

 

[ThrottleJockey]

Hollyweird. If the EMP source is a nuke you've got bigger things to worry about

Sure, but there are plenty of other more likely causes...solar flare, polar shift, etc....

 

[03A3]

I don't know a lot about this EMP stuff, or the likelyhood of it happening.
What I do hear about more all the time is changing Sun phases and solar flare ups. Maybe you guys have talked about this already and I missed it.
I recall reading that a long time ago (1850's?) this happened, and for example it burned up miles of telegraph wire somewhere.
Considering the way we live now, and our infrastructure, that would be devastating.