Design and reliability of 2 kV, 10 kA pulse rated GTO amplifiers for fusion applications

Author

Robinson, D.

Author_Institution

GEC Alsthom Eng. Res. Centre, UK

fYear

1994

fDate

26-28 Oct 1994

Firstpage

307

Lastpage

312

Abstract

The author describes how, in order to control the vertical position of a plasma in a fusion experiment, a gate turn off thyristor (GTO) bridge was constructed to apply a bipolar voltage of up to 2kV to a control coil. This was designed to rapidly control 10 kA of current supplied from a capacitor bank. The response time of the applied voltage was tobe less than 50μs so that the GTO was considered an ideal device for this application in terms of its switching speed and blocking voltage capability. As the maximum switchable current capability of each GTO was 3kA, a number of GTOs were connected in parallel to achieve the switchable current rating required

Keywords

bridge circuits; electric current control; fusion reactor instrumentation; plasma confinement; power amplifiers; power capacitors; power supplies to apparatus; pulsed power technology; thyristor circuits; 10 kA; 2 kV; 3 kA; 50 mus; bipolar voltage; blocking voltage capability; capacitor bank; control coil; current control; design; fusion applications; maximum switchable current capability; parallel connection; plasma; pulse rated GTO amplifiers; reliability; switching speed; vertical position;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

iet

Conference_Titel

Power Electronics and Variable-Speed Drives, 1994. Fifth International Conference on

Conference_Location

London

Type

conf

DOI

10.1049/cp:19940982

Filename

341600