An all solid-state, rolled strip pulse forming line with low impedance and compact structure

Abstract

An all solid-state and compact pulsed strip pulse forming line (PFL) is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The electromagnetic field distribution and the pulse formation in the strip PFL are analyzed numerically. Based on the theoretical analysis and numerical results, a rolled strip PFL with output voltage of 20 kV, pulse duration of 230 ns, and characteristic impedance of 0.5 Omega was designed and manufactured. We use the Mylar film and copper as the dielectric and conductor of the strip PFL. The dimension of the strip line is 23,000 x 400 x 1.6 mm(3) in the case in which the strip line is unrolled, and the strip line is finally rolled into a cylinder of diameter of 311 mm for the experiment. The dimension and weight are about ten times smaller than those of traditional dielectric (oil or pure water) PFL with the same electrical parameters. Two experiments were performed using the strip line. One was for a transmission line experiment, and the other was for a PFL experiment. In the experiment of transmission line, the transmission time of the voltage signal was 115 ns, and the signal had almost no distortion, which verified the design. In the PFL experiment, results gave a 17.8 kV, 270 ns (full width at half maximum) voltage pulse which was a quasisquare wave on the water load of 0.5 Omega. The current going through the load is about 35.6 kA.