Performance of the Laguna Pulsed Power System

The goal of the LAGUNA experimental series of the Los Alamos National Laboratory TRAILMASTER program is to accelerate an annular aluminum plasma z-pinch to greater than one hundred kilojoules of implosion kinetic energy. To accomplish this, an electrical pulse )5.5 MA must be delivered to a 20 nH load in ~1 ~s. The pulsed power system for these experiments consists of a capacitor bank for initial energy storage, a helical explosive-driven magnetic-flux compression generator for the prime power supply and opening and closing switches for power conditioning. While we have not yet achieved our design goal of 15 MA delivered to the inductive store of the system, all major components have functioned successfully at the 10 MA level. Significant suc.cesses and some difficulties experienced in these experiments are described.