Study, development and related application of a miniature compact pulsed power supply with high repetition frequency

Capacitor-based pulsed power supply (PPS) is widely used in fields related to electromagnetic launch, plasma, and materials' synthesis, modification and processing. As industrial applications place higher requirements on compact and portable pulsed power supplies, the National Key Laboratory of Transient Physics (NKLTP) recently developed a pulsed power supply consisting of a set of compact pulse-forming units (PFU), each with a capacitor energy storage of 220 kJ. This integrated PPS comes with a complete system configuration, a miniature compact structure, a high rate of repetition, and high power, with energy storage density exceeding 1.2 MJ/m 3 . This paper describes the device-level design of the unit, the system layout, the control system, the thermal management system, and the experimental results of the pulsed power supply. The experimental results verified the good reliability of the PPS at high repetition rates with each unit module delivering an output current of more than 100 kA. Additionally, flexible current pulse shapes can be formed by setting the charging voltage and the trigger sequence of the PFUs. The pulse forming network (PFN) developed from these PFUs was successfully applied to electromagnetic launch.