Design and construction of a triggered spark gap for long distance exploding wire experiments

This paper gives the technical information required to build a triggered spark gap (TSG) for igniting exploding wire experiments. The TSG, which uses a concentric three-electrode configuration, reliably triggers on test voltages between 10 and 60 kVdc from a 21 μF capacitor bank discharge source. A description of the electronic triggering circuit, operating region and a set of experimental results obtained using the TSG are also given.