Magnetic pulse accelerators in industry simulation and practice

This paper presents an overview summary of several research works conducted at PULSAR Ltd., presented in detail in other PPPS papers by the authors. As an industry-oriented company, our R&D concentrate on improving the efficiency, stability and durability of pulse-power systems, with emphasis on high magnetic field generation. Our systems employ a magnetic repulsion concept to accelerate a solid continuum, rather then free particles. This dictates very short acceleration travel (several 1/10th of a mm). Suitable measurement systems were developed for the high-speed measuring of small translation. A Two-Dimensional time-dependant model for simulating and optimizing the Electro-Magnetic-Mechanical coupled process of magnetic pulse acceleration was developed that has total-system simulating capacity, taking into account physical dimensions, electrical and mechanical properties of all materials comprising the system: coil, field shaper, accelerated part, and the impacted part. This model serves for optimizing the pulse current generator (PCG) design, inductor's system parameters and the pulse regime itself for any given industrial application. Several methods for pulse power diagnostics & health monitoring were also developed, which also serves to verify and support the simulation predictions and modeling. Systems composed of compact pulse current generators heaving a 1 kA-1.5 MA output with capacitor energy storage in the 10 s of kJ range, MA-level pulse transformers, and Coils & flux concentrators with 10 s of Tl (100 s kGauss) capability have been made and designed to withstand several 10,000 s of pulses at 4 PPM repetitive operation without fail. Electromagnetic and Mechanical phenomena regarding the behavior of Field Shapers (FS) and trapezoidal Monowind coils during core collapse were noted and identified, leading to new and improved designs. The Current-Augmentation Transformer (CAT) efficiency in driving coil loads was improved using industrial-grade transformer cores, with good agreement.