Pulsed power design for a compact X-ray simulator

The pulser system described here is being built to provide a transportable X-ray simulator for hardness testing of assemblies at their point of manufacture rather than at remote, dedicated simulator facilities. Operating voltage ranges are from 150 to 300 kV and 400 to 600 kV providing 1 mcal/cm/sup 2/ at the low end and greater than 10/sup 9/ rad(Si)/s at the high end over areas up to 1000 cm/sup 2/. To be transportable the pulser and its subsystems are to be packaged in a standard 8/spl times/8/spl times/20 ft shipping container which has been modified to house a self-contained simulator system when assembled. The pulser is a Marx driven 1.6 MV, 3 /spl Omega/ water pulseline using a self-closing multichannel water switch and gas dielectric prepulse suppression switch for waveform generation. Output impedance into a reflection or transmission e-beam diode is 1.5 /spl Omega/. A testbed was built to verify pulser and diode design prior to producing a prototype. This paper describes the Marx, pulseline, and switch designs and test results.