The use of saturable reactors as discharge devices for pulse generators

The subject of recurrent high-power pulse generation may be considered as including pulse generators for radar modulation, nuclear-particle acceleration, impulse testing, and auxiliary and ancillary circuits such as initiators and sub-modulators for more powerful discharge devices, e.g. initiators igniter firing-circuits. In generators of these types it has been customary to use electronic discharge devices which depend for their operation on the conducting properties of electric arcs as the means of rapidly discharging capacitive pulse-forming networks into appropriate utilization circuits. While these devices are, in general, satisfactory for many applications, it is well known that they have inherent disadvantages. Comparatively recent developments in the field of high-permeability high-saturation-flux-density magnetic materials having characteristically rectangular hysteresis loops, together with new circuits designed to take advantage of their special properties, have made it possible to overcome many of the disadvantages of electronic discharge devices by replacing them with static components having indefinitely long lives. The paper outlines the historical background to the development of some of the circuits and materials and describes the operation of circuits designed to fulfil the duties of radar pulse-modulators and ignitron firing circuits. Some practical and theoretical considerations affecting the design of the special components peculiar to the work are also described.