The Ranchito Helical Magnetic Flux Compression Generator

Summary form only given. The Ranchito helical flux compression generator (FCG) was designed at Los Alamos in the late 1990s by Max Fowler. The intent was to supply a few megampers from this booster generator for the initial current to a fast high current FCG in situations where large capacitor banks were not available. A recent test has been conducted in which a Ranchito FCG was used to drive current into a mock plate generator with a well characterized inductance. The test has not been fully analyzed at abstract submission time, but we supplied roughly 15 kA initial current to the 130 μH Ranchito from a capacitor bank, and an approximately 2 MA current was subsequently delivered to the 263 nH load. Full details of the generator design and experimental results are presented in the paper, and it appears that these data will be suitable for benchmarking Ranchito calculations in various computer models.