A fault analysis and design consideration of pulsed power supply for high power laser

According to the requirements of driving a flashlamp, the design of a high pulsed power supply (HPPS) based on capacitors as energy storage elements is presented. The special consideration is given to some possible faults such as capacitor internal short-circuit, bus breakdown to ground, flashlamp sudden short or break, and closing switch re-ignition in the pre-ionization branch. The faults of the HPPS were analyzed in detail. The fault current or voltage waveforms were shown through the circuit simulation. Based on the analysis and computation, the protection strategy and techniques were put forward. This is helpful for the design and safe operation of the HPPS. The primary experiments demonstrated that the design of the HPPS is successful.