High Performance Electrically Exploded Foil Opening Switches

Abstract

Electrically exploded foil fuses have been employed as high energy opening switches for several years (Ref 1,2). As stored energies evolve into the tens of megajoules and currents rise to near one hundred megamperes, small improvements in fuse performance could have significant effects on the amount of energy transferred to a load. In this paper we examine changes in the parameters of aluminum fuses that produce improved fuse performance when operated without a load. The factors of fuse thickness and fuse quench are seen to affect fuse performance as well as alteration of the fuse mass, length, and width. Those fuses that performed the "best" were examined and their results analyzed in both the time domain and the specific energy domain.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1985
Accession Number
ADA615370

Entities

People

  • J. C. Bueck
  • R. E. Reinovsky

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Computer Simulations
  • Databases
  • Elements
  • Energy
  • Energy Storage
  • Geometry
  • Inductance
  • Information Operations
  • Low Voltage
  • Peak Values
  • Pulse Compression
  • Pulsed Power
  • Simulations
  • Switches
  • Thickness
  • Voltage

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Electrical Engineering
  • Systems Analysis and Design