High Voltage Power Condition Systems Powered by Flux Compression Generators*

Compact, high-gain magnetic flux compressors (FCGs) are convenient sources of substantial energy for plasma-physics and electron-beam-physics experiments, but the need for highvoltage, fast-rising pulses is difficult to meet directly with conventional generators. While a variety of novel concepts employing simultaneous, axially-detonated explosive systems are under development, power-conditioning systems based on fuse opening switches and high-voltage transformers constitute an approach that complements the fundamental size, weight, and configuration of small helical flux compressors. In this paper, we consider, first, a basic inductive store/opening switch circuit and the implications associated with, specifically, a fuse opening switch and an FCG energy source. We develop a general solution to a transformer/ opening switch circuit which also includes (as a special case) the direct inductive store/opening switch circuit (without transformer) and wereport results of one elementary experiment demonstrating the feasibility of the approach. Basic Opening Switch Circuit We recall the fundamental behavior of a current interrupting switch, limiting our consideration to the case where the load is switched across the opening switch and storage inductor at the time when the voltage across the opening switch reaches a peak. Thus, the behavior of the circuit up to the time of peak voltage is independent of the load. For purposes of analysis we consider a switch whose resistance rises linearly from R = 0 at t = tc in Fig. 1, thus