Determining key parameters for the STRETCH meat grinder circuit

STRETCH (Slow Transfer of Energy Through Capacitive Hybrid) meat grinder circuit, which was proposed by IAT (Institute for Advanced Technology), added a capacitor into the traditional meat grinder circuit. Even though its energy density is slightly less than the corresponding pure inductance system, it can reduce the voltage across the opening switch and maintain high multiplication factor of the opening current. The performance of the STRETCH meat grinder depends on multiple parameters. The inductance ratio (n=L₁/L₂) and the capacitance(C) are two vital factors, which have a crucial influence on the system performance, such as the voltage over the main switch (V_Sopm), the current multiplication factor (m) and the ratio of the maximum capacitive energy over the total inductive energy (η). Thorough studies have been carried out in this paper on the relationship between the above two factors and the three performance criteria. This paper also discusses and analyzes the chosen of key parameters (n and C) for a single-stage STRETCH meat grinder with 2mH total inductance, which is made up of two serial coils with 0.95 coupling factor. The opening current of the main switch is 1kA, which constitutes a 1kJ inductive pulsed-power supply. It fully takes the advantage of the STRETCH meat grinder topology, intensifies the study of the inductive pulsed-power supply with higher energies, and is easy to be utilized for practical application.