Optimization of a triggered vacuum switc H with multi-rod electrodes system

Triggered vacuum switch (TVS) is one of the closing switches in pulsed power suppliers. The electrode structure of the TVS is one of the most important factors affecting the breakdown voltage. In this paper, the electrode structure of the TVS with multi-rode electrodes was optimized through rounding edge in order to increase the breakdown voltage. The electric field enhancement factor of TVS is defined by the ratio of the maximum electric field intensity to the average electric field intensity. The electric field enhancement factor the MTVS with different fillet radius is calculated using the finite element method. The results show that the enhancement factor is decrease with the increase of the fillet radius. In case of the inter-electrode gap distance with 12 mm, when the fillet radius of the edge of rod top is 5 mm and that of the side face of the rod is 3 mm, the enhancement factor decrease by 64%. And the electric field enhancement factor decreases with the increasing of the gap distance of inter-electrode. The performance of MTVS after optimization was investigated. The experimental results show that the breakdown voltage of the MTVS with the electrode optimization is improved significantly. On the other hand, the influence of the fillet radius on the time delay and the triggered voltage is very little.