Novel PFN with current turn-off capability for electric launchers

Author

Spahn, E. ; Buderer, G. ; Gauthier-Blum, C.

Author_Institution

German Res. Inst., St. Louis, MO, USA

Volume

37

Issue

1

fYear

2001

fDate

1/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

398

Lastpage

402

Abstract

In the last years at ISL a lot of work has been performed in order to develop and install highly flexible pulse forming networks (PFN), based on capacitors as the energy source for electric guns (railguns, ETC-guns). In this paper, the principle of the novel pulse forming unit is shown and discussed. Besides this, a first prototype is presented together with its electrical features. A PFN consisting of four units was built and investigated. First experiments with this PFN were performed, while the discharge was made into a dummy load. The high flexibility of this pulse power supply is shown, concerning the shaping of different current pulses and the turn-off capability. Finally results obtained by PSpice simulation with a real railgun load are presented. The results show the feasibility of using the rectifier-based PFN to drive an electric launcher. Due to the current turn-off capability and the highly modular design, an efficiency enhancement could be demonstrated

Keywords

AC-DC power convertors; load (electric); power capacitors; pulse generators; pulsed power supplies; railguns; rectifying circuits; 10 MJ; ETC-guns; PSpice simulation; current pulses; current turn-off capability; dummy load; electric launchers; modular design; pulse forming networks; pulsed power supply; railguns; rectifier; Guns; Power semiconductor switches; Pulse shaping methods; Pulsed power supplies; Railguns; Rectifiers; Semiconductivity; Semiconductor diodes; Thyristors; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.911863

Filename

911863