Computational simulation of the time dependent resistance and inductance of a field distortion spark gap

Abstract

Summary form only given, as follows. The time dependent resistance and inductance are important parameters of the gas spark switch. The time dependent inductance has a large influence on the rise time of the output wave of the pulsed power. This paper describes a new computational simulation method of the time dependent inductance and resistance of the gas spark switch. A parameter estimation model has been built using the DFP imitation Newton method. And the electrical parameters of the discharge process has been computed used the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method to solve the differential equations. In this method the complicated measurements of arc parameters were avoided. But the measurement of the discharge current of switch must be only performed before calculation. These unknown constants and parameters of the differential equations can be estimated by using the parameter estimation method, on the base of measuring the wave front and its amplitude of the discharge current of the spark switch. For the given initial estimated parameters, a series of numerical integral can be conducted, so that the more accurate solution can be obtained iteratively. This procedure can be repeated until the solution which can satisfy the requirement is obtained. For example, the time dependent resistance and inductance of a field distortion spark switch was computed used this method. At the moment of the current appearance, the resistance is 3, and the inductance is 0.93 nH. At the moment of the current reaching peak, resistance and inductance are 0.82 and 147 nH. The value of the calculated results corresponds to that from experiment.