Decade Quad water coupler-electrical design and performance

Summary form only given, as follows. The Decade Quad water coupler was designed to produce 10 MA into a shorted load and 8 MA into a 300 ns imploding plasma load. The paper covers the final electrical design of the as-built Decade Quad water coupler and the system performance using the PRS test load. The coupler structure was modeled in both 1D and 2D using TLCODE. Water breakdown calculations were performed for the various components. Electrostatic plots were used to predict breakdown probabilities for various enhanced water regions and to distribute the fields uniformly across the tube. The electrical design of the coupler diverters and their role in fault mode energy suppression is discussed. The tube was designed to be able to use either rexolite or polyurethene insulators. The vacuum MITLS were simulated using code developed to design the Z machine MITLS. A detailed circuit model is shown, along with a simpler equivalent circuit model that is useful for load simulations. The predicted performance is compared to recent machine data.