The Meat Grinder With SECT Circuit

The meat grinder is a basic circuit for inductive pulsed-power supply (IPPS). Based on meat grinder, the Institute of Advanced Technology proposed a circuit called the slow transfer of energy through capacitive hybrid (STRETCH) meat grinder, in which an Integrated Gate Commutated Thyristors (IGCT) is selected as the main switch. Tsinghua University proposed the STRETCH meat grinder with inverse current commutation with semiconductor devices (ICCOS) in which the main switch is replaced by a thyristor and the ICCOS subcircuit is introduced to turn off the main switch. To reduce the opening switch voltage and increase the current turning-off capacity for IPPS, this paper presents a novel circuit topology named the meat grinder with self-charged capacitor and thyristors (SECTs). The key idea of the SECT topology is to turn off the primary current by the energy transfer capacitor, which is precharged. The meat grinder with SECT has larger capacity than the STRETCH meat grinder because it replaces the IGCT with a thyristor and is simpler than the STRETCH meat grinder with ICCOS because it only needs one capacitor. The suggested circuit is more suitable for IPPS module with high energy density. Simulation and experiment have been carried out to validate the circuit.