Development of a test platform for high voltage ceramic capacitors based on magnetic compression

The capabilities of long lifetime, fast charging and discharging of high voltage ceramic capacitors are important for their application in pulsed power facilities. This paper presents a rep-rate platform for testing capacitors at several tens kilovolts with charging and discharging time in microsecond region. The platform consists of a high voltage power supply, a primary unit, a core-type pulse transformer, a magnetic compression network, a core reset power supply and a test cell. A circuit model is presented to optimize the electrical parameters of the platform. Then, the test platform is built and experimented. One pseudo-Spark Switch (PSS) is used as a control switch in the primary unit for pulse charging and another PSS is used for discharging the under-tested capacitors in the test cell. Test results of the platform with dummy load and test cell are presented to verify the design and capabilities of the platform.