Extended lifetime railgap switch
In a railgap switch of the type having an elongate blade electrode made of conductive material, an elongate housing made of insulating material for supporting the blade electrode and plate electrode in opposed relation extending in the same direction with the blade centered over the plate and separated therefrom by a gap, and a gas filling the housing and the gap, the gas being selected to breakdown and switch from a highly insulative state to a highly conductive state upon application of a high voltage across the blade and plate electrodes, the improvement is described comprising: forming the blade with laterally extending transverse wing portions at the edge of the blade and adjacent the gap so as to extend in spaced parallel relation to the surface of the plate, the blade generally following the contour thereof to form an inverted T-shape structure with the wing portions extending transversely of the elongate dimension of the blade. The wing portions terminating in a pair of spaced parallel edges extending along the elongate direction of the blade to thereby create two spaced elongate edges along which arcs form serving to divide the erosion effects of discharge between them, the current through each edge being one-half of that in single-edge devices with ablation wear reduced accordingly to give significantly larger switch lifetime. The blade and wing portions limiting ablation erosion of the edges in a direction generally align with the plate contour so that the edge-to-plate separation remains substantially constant.
- Assignee:
- Northrop Corp., Hawthorne, CA
- Patent Number(s):
- US 4723255
- OSTI ID:
- 5276200
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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