Plasma Opening Switch Experiments on Hawk with an E-Beam Diode Load
Abstract
Successful application of inductive energy storage depends critically on the performance of the opening switch. The new Hawk generator at NRL1 is used in plasma opening switch (POS) experiments in the 1-micro(s) conduction time regime to study lon9 conduction time POS physics. In th1s experiment, different POS configurations were used, including various switch to load distances and different cathode center conductor radii. The load was an e-beam diode. Peak load powers of 0.5 TW, with load current risetimes of 20 ns and current transfer efficiencies of 80%, were achieved with a POS conduction time of 0.75 micro(s) using a 5 cm diam cathode. Typically, 40 kJ were coupled into the diode, which is 20% of the energy stored in the Hawk capacitance.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA637938
Entities
People
- Bruce V. Weber
- David D. Hinshelwood
- J. C. Kellogg
- John R. Boller
- P. J. Goodrich
- Robert J. Commisso
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory