Book Description
The clear advantages of inductive storage for large scale energy storage applications are creating an increasing interest in the research and development of the opening switches required. Opening switches for single-shot inductive transfers have received considerable attention and are fairly well advanced. The problem addressed by this workshop of high power opening switches for high repetition rate applications is much more severe, however, and may well require a major research and development effort. Two candidates for such an opening switch, the triggered vacuum interrupter and the magnetically quenched thyratron, are discussed. By electrically retriggering the discharge in the vacuum interrupter between pulses, the dependence on mechanical motion is eliminated. This should enable repetition rate operation at 10 to 15 kHz while still maintaining the vacuum interrupter's proven interrupting performance of tens of kiloamps at tens of kilovolts. The magnetically quenched thyratron, on the other hand, uses a cross magnetic field to raise the switch impedance by decreasing the electron mobility and driving the discharge into an arc chute wall where it is quenched. Successful interruptions of 1 kA at 15 kV and 100 A at 50 kV after conduction for 10 .mu.s have been demonstrated by previous researchers. Work at Los Alamos is directed toward understanding the basic mechanisms involved and increasing the switch ratings, particularly the conduction time.
