Correlated electrical and optical diagnostics of water switches operating at 4 MV

Summary form only given. Water has been used as an energy storage media in high power pulse power machines for decades. The use of water filled spark gaps to transfer energy from one energy storage stage to another has led to a high degree of integration not possible with gas switches. This, coupled with the relatively high breakdown strength of water manifests as short gap lengths and correspondingly low switch inductance. Though water switches have been used extensively in pulsed power drivers for many years, a predictive capability of their performance, and its scaling with voltage, is lacking. To improve our understanding of both the basic physics and the operational capability of water switches, an extensively diagnosed experiment on water switches, nominally operated at 4 MV and 350 kA, was conducted. This experiment has led to a deep understanding of the operation of water switches. Correlations between the optical and electrical data will be presented.