E Minor upgrade

Summary form only given. The E Minor machine at AWE Aldermaston was originally designed and built as a test-bed for the Marx generator of the 10 MV, 80 ns Mogul E Flash X-Ray machine. For this purpose it had a short (40 ns) oil insulated Blumlein, which originally fed a resistive load. After Mogul E was completed, E Minor was converted into a flash X-Ray machine using an existing, surplus insulator stack from another machine on site (EROS). Unfortunately this insulator stack is only capable of holding off 5.5 MV, well below the maximum possible output of the E-Minor Marx. To continue the X-ray diode development work required for the proposed Hydrodynamics Research Facility (HRF), E Minor needs to upgraded so that it can deliver a 10 MV pulse. During 2001 E Minor will be upgraded to full voltage operation by fitting a Mogul-E-style insulator stack, requiring modifications to the front end of the machine and to the building in which it is housed. Even though the stack is the same as Mogul E, 2D electrostatic modeling software has been used to improve the uniformity of the electric fields along it, compared to Mogul E. This poster will detail the development of the E Minor facility and the modifications required by the upgrade to the building, the machine and the X-ray shielding. Analysis of the insulator stack will also be presented detailing the modifications required to accommodate higher voltage output.