Status report on Project Hercules

Conference · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1993 · IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States)

OSTI ID:5708171

Loree, D; Giesselmann, M; Kristiansen, M ^[1]; Larson, D ^[2]

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1. Texas Tech. Univ., Lubbock, TX (United States)
2. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)

Project Hercules is a project to improve ignitron switches which will then be used on the upgrade of Lawrence Livermore's Nova Laser for their ICF program. The goals of Hercules, which stands for High Energy Research Concerning the Ultimate Lifetime of Experimental Switches, are to lifetime test (up to 10,000 shots) prototype ignitrons or other switches with the required Nova current and coulomb parameters (300 kA, 200 C), recommend design changes, and retest the second generation switches. This report describes the design and construction of the test circuit and necessary diagnostics. The details of the design and construction of the test circuit and necessary diagnostics. The details of the design and construction of a 0.5 MJ electrolytic capacitor bank and a semi-automatic diagnostic/control system are described. The required test run data include peak current and corresponding tube voltage for every shot, entire current and voltage waveforms every few shots, and ignitor resistance values every few shots. Additionally, the conversion of a 120 kW, 12 kV constant voltage supply to an 8 A constant current supply with the use of six SCRs and a commercial control board will be described. The final results of this project will be lifetime data at high current and high coulomb for and improvements on some of the best of the new generation of pulsed power switches.

• OSTI ID: 5708171
• Report Number(s): CONF-9204102--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States) Journal Volume: 29:1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
700411* -- Inertial Confinement Devices-- (1992-)
CAPACITORS
CONFINEMENT
CONTROL SYSTEMS
DESIGN
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENT
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
LIFETIME
NOVA FACILITY
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
POWER SUPPLIES
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
SERVICE LIFE
SWITCHES
TEST FACILITIES