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U.S. Department of Energy
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Development of a resistive load for PBFA II rimfire gas switch simultaneity and laser triggering tests

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5770889

Before any useful energy can be delivered to the diode in PBFA II, all 36 rimfire gas switches have to be synchronized with a maximum jitter (one sigma) of 2 ns. In conjunction with the synchronization testing process, the laser system that will trigger all 36 rimfire gas switches will have to be aligned and tested. PBFA-I operations have also shown that being able to test gas switch performance without putting energy into the insulator stack or diode is very useful. Such a capability has been designed into PBFA II, with resistors that will manually be inserted across the first pulse-forming line (PFL1). A schematic of the equivalent circuit test setup and a schematic drawing of Demon are shown. The PFL1 resistors are designed to divert all energy away from the down-line water switches and diode load. The Demon accelerator, which is one module of PBFA II, was used to develop and test the resistive load. This paper describes those test results. 3 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-76DP00789
OSTI ID:
5770889
Report Number(s):
SAND-84-2245; ON: DE85011080
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English