A 0.5 MV magnetically self-insulated pulsed transformer

Abstract

This paper describes the successful development of a light and compact 0.5 MV spiral-strip transformer, with the secondary winding contained in vacuum and based on magnetic self-insulation. Ensuring trouble-free operation required the use of conductive elastomers in electric field grading techniques and the adoption in the secondary winding of glass/ceramic conductor spacers. It is demonstrated that the primary-current/secondary breakdown-voltage characteristic is a function of the vacuum pressure, with only 52 kA being necessary to produce 0.5 MV at 10−6 Torr. The difficult task of modelling the transformer required 3D electric and magnetic field computation, together with state-of-the-art calculation of the electron flow in the vacuum. Based on the results obtained to date, scaling up to multi-megavolt transformers can readily be envisaged.