Improvement of power conditioning for a pulsed plasma source applying the storage inductor of variable inductance

Summary form given only, as follows. One of the key difficulties in forming pulses of given durations and shapes as well as power magnitudes by power supplies with storage inductors for various pulsed power applications is the impedance mismatch between a supply and its load. Within the bounds of this problem the paper describes the possibility for improving the mode of energy delivering to discharge chambers of plasma sources containing pulsed power supplies with variable storage inductor (SI) inductance. Decreasing of the SI inductance and, therefore, the time constant of the discharge occurs after completion of the opening switch performance as a result of changing the current density vector direction in the active volume of the SI conductor. During this process increased power is delivered to the plasma load from the whole volume of the storage inductor. Space-time electric, hydrodynamic and thermodynamic characteristics of the discharge are obtained with the use of the MHD theoretical approach and numerical simulation. The mathematical model is thoroughly verified by the known experimental data. One more advantage of the model is also the description of the multicomponent medium in the discharge chamber with consideration of its multiple ionization. It is shown that the decreasing of the SI inductance during the postcommutation stage of discharge allows:- an increase in the discharge power by 2-3 times during the SI inductance reducing; a rise in efficiency due to useful utilization of the energy dissipated in the opening switch; a decrease in the dimensions of the power supply due to combining the storage inductor and the opening switch in the same case; determination of the necessary shape of the current pulse (in accordance with the load demands) owing to the possibility for setting duration and limits of the SI inductance variation.