Evaluation of a RVU-43 switch as the closing switch for a modular 300 kJ pulse power supply for ETC application

Eight 300 kJ capacitor bank modules are being assembled for the Korean ETC program. Six self-healing capacitors (22 kV, 50 kJ) are used as a capacitor bank module and an RVU-43 switch is used as the main pulse power closing switch for each module. Pulse power inductors of 20 μH to 160 μH are used to obtain the required current pulse width and each module is crowbarred by three parallel crowbar diode stacks. Several kinds of high current switch for capacitive pulse power system were considered. The RVU-43 switch was selected because it is much cheaper than thyristors and has rectifying capability after passing the current zero. Performance test for the Russian-made RVU-43 (max rating: 25 kV, 200 kA, 120 Coulomb) switch have been conducted and the results for self-breakdown voltage, minimum operating voltage, turn-on delay, reverse current blocking ability and switch loss are presented