An overview of the Atlas pulsed-power systems

Atlas is a facility designed and being constructed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to perform high energy-density experiments in support of weapon-physics and basic-research programs. It is designed to be an international user facility, providing experimental opportunities to researchers from national laboratories and academic institutions. For hydrodynamic experiments, it will be capable of achieving pressures exceeding 10 Mbar in a several cm/sup 3/ volume. The 23-MJ capacitor bank will consist of 240-kV Marx modules arranged around a central target chamber. The Marx modules will be discharged through vertical triplate transmission lines to a parallel plate collector inside the target chamber. The capacitor bank is designed to deliver a peak current of 27 to 32 MA with a 4- to 5-/spl mu/s risetime. Predicted performance with a typical load is presented. Descriptions of the major subsystems are also presented, including data from subsystem performance tests.