In this study, experimental investigation has been performed for discharge characteristics of a multigap multiaperture (MGMA) configuration of pseudospark switch (PSS) with a saturable inductor (SI) in series at the anode. The impact of the number of inductor cores on the commutation process is studied experimentally. Initially, in the commutation process, when the anode voltage is 40 kV with five toroid cores, the inductor is unsaturated, and it offers high impedance, resulting in a slow current rise rate of ≈2.5\approx 2.5 kA/ μs\mu \text{s} with fast voltage drop rate. During the second phase, when the inductor gets saturated and offers low impedance, it leads to a fast-current rise rate of ≈4.35\approx 4.35 kA/ μs\mu \text{s} . Due to the SI, the discharge current rise lags behind the breakdown voltage drop of MGMA-PSS. It results in a significant reduction in power dissipation across the switch during the commutation process. Furthermore, equivalent electrical circuit modeling has also been proposed for the estimation of power losses during the commutation process. During the application of 40-kV anode voltage with five inductor cores at 30-Pa background H2 gas pressure, the commutation losses have been reduced up to ≈95%, which also enhanced the performance of PSS. The proposed analysis and optimization of the inductor core would be very much useful for the reduction in the anode erosion and improved the switching performance of the MGMA-PSS.

中文翻译：

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与饱和电感器串联的多间隙多孔赝火花开关的性能


在本研究中，对阳极串联可饱和电感器 (SI) 的赝火花开关 (PSS) 的多间隙多孔 (MGMA) 配置的放电特性进行了实验研究。实验研究了电感磁芯数量对换流过程的影响。最初，在换相过程中，当阳极电压为 40 kV、5 个环形磁芯时，电感不饱和，并且呈现高阻抗，导致电流上升速率缓慢，约为 ≈2.5\approx 2.5 kA/ μs\mu \text {s} 具有快速电压下降率。在第二阶段，当电感器饱和并提供低阻抗时，会导致电流快速上升率为 ≈4.35\approx 4.35 kA/ μs\mu \text{s} 。由于SI，放电电流上升滞后于MGMA-PSS的击穿电压下降。它可以显着降低换向过程中开关的功耗。此外，还提出了等效电路建模来估计换相过程中的功率损耗。在 30 Pa 背景氢气压力下，应用 40 kV 阳极电压和 5 个电感磁芯时，换向损耗降低了约 95%，这也增强了 PSS 的性能。所提出的电感磁芯分析和优化对于减少阳极侵蚀并提高 MGMA-PSS 的开关性能非常有用。