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Repetitive Spark Gap Switches

  • Chapter
Gas Discharge Closing Switches

Part of the book series: Advances in Pulsed Power Technology ((APUT,volume 2))

Abstract

for high peak power pulsed power applications spark gaps are the normal choice for switches. They are triggerable with nanosecond jitter, have a large operating range, and give good time compression per switched stage. In addition they are rugged, light-weight, inexpensive, and relatively easy to use. On the negative side, they suffer from recovery problems at high repetition rates and have some instability (prefiring) problems even in single shot applications. Despite the fact that spark gaps have been used for over a century and many of these properties have been known for years, it has only been in the past few decades that the need for high peak power repetitive pulsed power systems has forced serious efforts to engineer systems compatible with these apparent short comings.

This Chapter was originally intended to include additional sections and to be edited by G. Schaefer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, 87185, USA

    M. T. Buttram

  2. University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, 94550, USA

    S. Sampayan

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  1. M. T. Buttram
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  2. S. Sampayan
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Late of Polytechnic University, Farmingdale, New York, USA

    Gerhard Schaefer

  2. Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA

    M. Kristiansen

  3. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

    A. Guenther

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Buttram, M.T., Sampayan, S. (1990). Repetitive Spark Gap Switches. In: Schaefer, G., Kristiansen, M., Guenther, A. (eds) Gas Discharge Closing Switches. Advances in Pulsed Power Technology, vol 2. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2130-7_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2130-7_11

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