Generation of steep front short duration impulses from conventional standard impulse generator-a simulation study

The paper presents the circuit analysis of the generation of high voltage (HV) steep front short duration pulse of several hundred kV from a conventional standard impulse generator using co-axial cable as a pulse forming line (PFL). Two different circuits have been analyzed using the PSPICE circuit analysis program. The effects of impulse characteristic and the charging time of the cable on the wave shape of the resulting pulse has been studied. The pulse amplitude and the pulse shape (rise time and width) depend on the load impedance, the matching resistance, the ground connection of the sheath of co-axial cable and the type of HV switch (trigger gap). As it is time consuming and expensive to build such HV circuits in the laboratory, the simulation studies are important to gather design data on HV circuits in order to determine the type of pulse that can be generated for given cable and impulse source characteristics