On the input power of the half-wave magnetic amplifier circuit

The mechanism of amplification of the self-saturating magnetic amplifier in general consists of its flux control of the magnetic core. To control the flux level in the core, the core loss must be supplied from the control circuit during the control or reset half-cycle of the specific core. Therefore the correlation of input power and reset core loss is very important. (Here the reset core loss means the portion of the core loss consumed during the control or reset half-cycle of the core.) In the case of the full-wave magnetic amplifier circuit, this relation has been discussed in the literature;1 however, the case of the half-wave magnetic amplifier has not received as detailed consideration. In this paper the authors demonstrate the correlation between the input power and the reset core loss utilizing a simplified method of circuit analysis. Experimental procedure derived from the simplified analysis verify the analytical conclusions. The existence of an optimum condition is shown. The optimum requires the resistance of the eontrol voltage source and the effective resistance of the magnetic core during the resetting interval to be matched. This condition permits achievement of minimum input power.