Insulations for metallic glasses in pulse power systems

The authors report on magnetic properties and voltage hold-off strengths for various insulation materials used with iron-based metallic glass alloys with both low and high induced anisotropy energies. Cowound insulation films as well as conformal insulations were investigated. None of the insulations was found to have uniformly good voltage hold-off, low induced stress, and a high packing fraction for pulse power applications. Conformal insulations either tended to degrade the magnetic properties of the cores or were too thin to provide uniform voltage hold-off. Cowound insulations had adequate voltage hold-off but resulted in cores with lower packing fractions than did conformal insulations. Cores cowound with mica paper insulation and annealed after winding had the best magnetic properties among the cowound cores