Experimental Study of an Explosive Cumulative Current Closing Switch for Powerful Capacitor Facilities

In some experiments conducted on the powerful capacitor facilities it is necessary to keep the electromagnetic energy in the load as long as possible, i.e. to support the current in the load during a longer period of time. This can be realized by installing a fast-operating closing switch (in literature called "crowbar") at the capacitors output or at the load input. Herewith, the closing switch should have a low self-inductance and an active resistance in the process of operation as compared with a discharge circuit of a pulsed source. The paper describes the design and presents the results of the experiments with an explosive cumulative current closing switch having a minimum amount of HE that allows using it both at the test sites and on the laboratory facilities. In the experiments conducted the amplitude of current in a discharge circuit reached 50 kA, the contact keeping time was no more than 100 mus, and the magnitude of contact resistance was within the range 0,1...0,2 mOhm. When the powerful pulsed sources of current are used, a necessity arises in a number of cases to close some parts of the electric circuit of the source. For example, often the load circuit is separated from the source circuit with the help of a special closing switch at a required time moment to limit the effect of the pulsed current source on the load. The fast-operating closing switches for the electric circuits of powerful pulsed sources of current are called crowbars.