Investigation of a strip-line long-conduction-time plasma opening switch on MAG-l

Experimental results of the long-conduction-time Plasma Opening Switch (POS) operation in a strip-line geometry of electrodes are presented. Considerable plasma motion and plasma pinching during the conduction time were registered. Diminishing of the plasma asymmetry with the help of electrode “wings” allowed visible improvement of the POS operation. Operation of the plasma guns used in this experiment was specially studied. Synchronization of two plasma switches with the help of a low-inductive upstream electrical connection is efficient only in the case of initially big difference in their conduction times. Computer simulations with the use of new numerical method of adaptive mesh refinement are compared with the experiment.