Analysis of nonresonant charging circuit for magnetic pulse generator

The use of saturable reactors to produce narrow, high-energy pulses is becoming increasingly important in radar and similar applications where rugged devices of high reliability are required. General principles of operation of these magnetic pulse generators are discussed thoroughly in the original paper on this subject by W. S. Melville.1 Subsequently, other articles have been published dealing with design criteria, core volume derivations, and other additions to the theory of operation and state of the art.2¿5 These works, however, concern themselves mainly with resonant charging circuits. The intent of this paper is to derive the fundamental equations for nonresonant operation of the input charging circuit and to compare performance as a function of the ratio of charging circuit frequency to line frequency. Piecewise linear analysis is the method employed to obtain the solutions of this nonlinear circuit.