Air Insulated Linear Pulse Transformer Stage

A stage of a linear pulse transformer with air insulation of atmospheric pressure was created and tested. The stage is a transformer with two turns in the primary and one turn in the secondary windings. The primary winding is configured as two parallel-connected inductors with transformer steel cores. The capacitive energy storage is switched by a multi-gap multi-channel spark switch to two inductors without the use of high-voltage supply cables. The capacity of the storage can vary up to 450 nF. The maximum stored energy is 0.36 kJ at 40 kV charging voltage. The efficiency of energy transfer from a capacitive storage to a matched load of ~ 4 Ohms is about 60 %. The characteristic energy output time is ~1 µs, At a high-impedance load, the stage can generate a voltage pulse with a front of 100 ns and an amplitude close to twice the charging voltage. In the short circuit mode, the stage discharge current is ~2 0 kA, the time to a maximum of about 400 ns. The test results allow us to recommend a stage of the linear pulse transformer for loads with variable resistance and a high resistance state time ≤ 200 ns.