Delay Characteristics and Controller Design of a Triggered Vacuum Switch

Two types of triggered vacuum switches (TVSs) named TVS-1 and TVS-2 with different configuration in trigger unit were described for investigating the delay characteristics. A design circuit for controlling the TVS is proposed herein. The trigger energy of the controller can be adjusted conveniently. By means of changing the trigger energy, the experimental data show that the delay and jitter times decrease with increasing trigger energy. The delay and jitter times decreases magnificently with the increasing voltage in the main gap. By increasing the main-gap voltage, the triggered probability increases. The TVS-2 has better performance in delay characteristics than TVS-1 because of the improvement in the trigger structure. With a trigger energy of 0.064 J, it is possible to fire both of the TVSs. For the TVS-2 case, the delay time decreases to 2.3 mus, and its jitter time decreases to 1.2 mus when the trigger energy is 1.6 J.