Experimental studies on a repetitive pulsed power modulator with a compact Tesla transformer

Experimental studies on a designed pulsed power modulator with a compact Tesla transformer in single and repetitive modes from low voltages to high voltages are experimentally carried out in turn. The experimental results are presented and analyzed. The conclusions are shown as follows: (1) the modulator's highest output voltage across a 100 Ω resistive load in single mode is obtained to be 330 kV with 7 ns pulse duration and 2 ns rise-time; (2) the cooling system and gas blowing system are unnecessary and not adopted experimentally in repetitive mode in the case that the number of pulses in a batch is less than or equal to 300, as a result, the volume and weight of the modulator system is reduced; (3) in the range of 300 pulses in a batch, with the increase of the number of pulses in repetitive mode, the average value of the output voltage declines and the pulse-to-pulse instability of the output voltage decreases, at the same time, the decline degree of the output voltage increases and reaches to be stable when the number of pulses in a batch is more than 50; (4) with the increase of the repetition rate, the pulse-to-pulse instability of the output voltage increases, and the average value of the output voltage declines, especially after the repetition rate exceeds 40 Hz; (5) pressurization can significantly improve the characteristics in repetitive mode and the improved level of the characteristics is almost the same for different pressurization level; (6) the pulsed power modulator can steadily output 310 kV for 300 pulses in 40 Hz repetition rate.