Battery operated portable 300 kV pulsed power system

We have developed a compact, portable, high-voltage, pulsed power source. Such systems can have a range of industrial applications, such as driving portable x-ray sources. The primary source is a series-parallel bank of dry-cell batteries. A dc to dc converter SMPS converts the 30V-dc output from the battery-bank to a 30kV, 2mA output. This, in turn, is used to charge a 0.24 μF capacitor to 30kV. The whole power supply, excluding the capacitor weighs only 3 kg and is compact. The capacitor weighs 5.5 kg. We are trying to use more compact capacitors to further reduce the weight. The capacitor is discharged into the primary of a pulse transformer to step-up the voltage. By immersing the pulse transformer in oil we have obtained 300 kV from the pulse transformer. Such an output will be enough for our applications. Details of the system and its performance are reported in the paper.