SIMULATION, DESIGN AND TEST OF A MOV PULSE SHAPING

DEVICE FOR HIGH POWER MICROWAVE GENERATORS

M. Giesselmannl, T. Heeren, E. Kristiansen, J. Dickens
D. Castro, D. Garcia, M. Kristiansen.
Pulsed Power Laboratory, Departments of Electrical Engineering and Physics
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, 79409-3 102, USA
$Email: MichaelG@coe.ttu.edu
Abstract
This paper describes a Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV)
pulse shaping device, which is to be used for generating a
flat-top voltage pulse for High Power Microwave devices.
The MOV pulse-shaping device is attached to a coaxial
pulse compression system. The pulse compression system
consists of an inductive energy storage section, an
exploding wire fuse and an output spark gap. The paper
contains a detailed discussion of the pulse compression
system followed by the description of the MOV pulse-
shaping device. The MOV elements that are used for this
pulse shaping application are the SIOV-E32VR602 type
made by Siemens.
I. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Figure 1 shows a drawing of the experimental setup.
The system consists of a primary storage capacitor
(Maxwell 16.5 pF, 45 kV), a triggered closing switch, the
energy storage inductor, the exploding wire fuse, the
MOV stack, a peaking gap, and a 13 R resistive load
resistor. For all of the results reported here, the peaking
gap was closed. This was done to be able to observe the
heating phase of the fuse. The fuse section, consisting of
the lower Fuse-T and upper fuse cylinder, as well as the
enclosure of the peaking gap were tilled with a SF6- Air
mixture at an approximate l/l ratio. The coaxial enclosure
of the load resistor was filled with transformer oil. The
fuse was constructed of a filament of thin copper wires.
The fuse wires and the support structure were embedded
in fine sand used for sandblasting (Potters Industries,
2WS80) to aid in the suppression of the arc after the
explosion of the fuse.
To analyze the performance of the system, we measured
the voltage on the output of the triggered closing switch
located directly behind the primary storage capacitor. We
also measured the currents at four positions in the system
using Pearson current monitors. A Pearson monitor model
1423 was used to measure the current on the input of the
primary of the storage inductor. The currents in the fuse
and in the load were measured with Pearson monitors
model 4418 and 4997 respectively. A forth Pearson
monitor with a ratio of O.OOlV/A was used to measure the
current in the MOVs.
Figure 1. Drawing of the complete Pulse Forming System.
0.790%9499.2@961O.OO@l999 IEEE.
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II. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
From the examination of the experimental setup as well
as from the study of previous results [l] it is obvious, that
the process of current-interruption by the fuse is critical
for the performance of the system. Ideally, the fuse should
open at the instant of the current peak in the inductor
L
Storer
absorb no energy and instantaneously commutate
the current from the inductor into the load. Under these
ideal conditions the ratio of the load voltage and the initial
charging voltage of the capacitor Csad would be:
9 If the total cross section of the fuse is too low, it
interrupts too early and not enough current has build up
in the inductor.
l If the total cross section of the wires is too large, the
fuse will not open or open after the peak current has
occurred.
l If more fuse wires are used for a given total cross
section, each individual wire carries less current which
should be easier to interrupt.
For our investigations we used copper wires with both
36 gauge and 44 gauge. The following equation closely
(1) relates the US-gauge standard to the actual cross section
of the wire [2]:
However, with the parameters in our circuit, the resistance
SO- Gauge
of the fuse has a noticeable influence on the current
A rmil(Gauge) =2
t 1
3
buildup during the heating phase (prior to the explosion of
(2)
the fuse wires). In addition, the fuse will absorb a
considerable amount of energy during the turn off phase.
The resulting area is given in circular mils. 1 circular mil
Therefore, we can not expect to get close to the voltage
represents the area of a circle with a diameter of lmil =
ratio represented by the formula shown above. In order to
l/1000 *inch.
find the optimum parameters for the fuse, we studied the
influence of the total cross section of the fuse as well as
the influence of the total number of fuse wires. The
rationale behind variation of these parameters is:
Figure 2. Voltage and current traces for best fuse performance.
14
12
2
0
240
m
180 ,~/r------260
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Cross-section [cmil]
Figure 3. Peak load current as a function of total cross-section for 36 gauge and 44 gauge wires,
700 800
16
l
14
.
,/--
12
2
0 I I 1 I I I I -I
35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
Wire Gauge [AGWJ
Figure 4: Peak load current as a function of wire gauge # with constant total cross section
Figures 3&4 show the results of a comprehensive set of peak current in the load increases, if for a given total cross
experiments to determine the optimum number of fuse section, more wires with a smaller diameter are used.
wires and the optimum total cross section. Figure 3 shows
the peak current obtained in the 13 Q load resistor as a
function of the total cross section of the fuse wires for 36
III. MOV PULSE SHAPING
gauge and 44 gauge wires. It can be seen that the peak is
Figure 5 shows a normalized V-I characteristic of one
more pronounced for 44 gauge wires and occurs at a
of the MOV units we used. The SIOV-E32VR602 MOVs,
slightly lower total cross section. Figure 4 shows that the
which have been used in the experiment, have a
cylindrical shape with a diameter of 34 mm and a height
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of 44 mm. The reference voltage for one MOV is given
by the data sheet to be 25.6 kV at a current level of 1 mA.
This corresponds to 0.5 or 50% voltage level in Figure 5.
SIEMENS
b&.w Swr saw 04 If 1 1,: lil lW .+xX WN
Pi
Figure 5. Normalized V-I Characteristic of the MOVs.
Figul
Figure 6 shows a set of current traces obtained with
MOVs. The fuse for this shot was made up of 10 wires of
36 gauge copper wire. Without MOVs, the load voltage
obtained with these settings is about 130 kV. In Figure 6,
this voltage is limited to about IOOkV with the use of 7
MOVs connected in series. The peak current in the MOVs
is 5kA.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
We build and tested a pulse conditioning system for use
with a high power microwave system containing an MOV
based pulse-shaping device. We performed a
comprehensive performance study to determine the best
fuse parameters varying both the total cross section as
well as the diameter of individual fuse wires. The MOV
based pulse-shaping device proved to be an effective
means to limit the voltage at a pre-set level.
+--- Current at the Trigger Gap, 6.4kNdiv
Current in the Fuse, 6.4kNdiv
Current in the Load, 2kNdiv
-Current in the MOVs. 5k#div
.I, ...aar... ;,. -A..-... -../ .--.- -_..*, ..*, .*r.. 1 .*.- .?a-.~_ .,,,. .rl_..- ,a-.-.h.;.,*r. . .* F..
re 6. Experimental Results with MOVs.
V. REFERENCES VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
[I] M. Kristiansen, J. Dickens, T. Hurtig, M. This work was solely funded by the Explosive-Driven
Giesselmann, E. Kristiansen, Simulation, Design Power Generation MURI program funded by the Director
and Construction of a Pulsed Power Supply for High of Defense Research & Engineering (DDR&E) and
Power Microwaves Using Explosively Driven managed by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Magnetic Flux Compression, 1998 MegaGauss (AFOSR). We also like to acknowledge the generous
Conference, Tallahassee, Fl, Oct. 18-23, 1998. donation of the MOVs by SIEMENS, Berlin, Germany.
[2] Rudy Severns, P.O. Box 589, Cottage Grove, Oregon
97424, Professional Education Seminar on Magnetics
Design, 1998 Applied Power Electronics Conference,
Anaheim, Ca., Feb. 14-18, 1998.
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