Characteristics of high-current pulsed discharge

The time-dependent resistance of high-current pulsed arc discharge was obtained accurately by solving circuit equation using measured values of the current and breakdown voltage. The gap length and gas pressure were changed from 0.1 to 2.0 cm and from 200 to 760 Torr, respectively. The arc resistance takes the minimum value at the maximum arc current, and the minimum value can be expressed by a function of maximum current. The initial stages of the discharge (i.e., from 0.1 to 0.6 micro second after sparkover), the equations by Rompe, Vlastos, and Kushner give the accurate predicted values of arc resistances. At later stages after maximum arc current (i.e., from 0.6 micro second after sparkover), the values obtained from the equations by Kushner and AWA model agree well with the measured value.