The electrical discharge characteristics of the 3.5 KJ electrothermal plasma gun experiment

Abstract EN

In order to better understand the operating characteristics of an electrothermal plasma gun and its design, a variety of operation characteristics including ( the length of the capillary, applied voltage, diameter of the capillary tube, circuit inductance) were investigated to determine performance effects and viability in a real system.

An Electrothermal Plasma Gun (ETG) is composed of a capillary discharge tube made of Teflon operated with simple RLC circuit.

The device called Electrothermal Gun (ETG) which is composed of 4 capacitors (70 μF, 10 kV, 1.3 μH) connected in parallel to a plasma source by means of one high power plane transmission line by mean of a switch triggered by negative pulse 360/385 V.

For the present studies a simple RLC was chosen, which allowed the circuit parameters to be easily measure d.

The electrothermal discharge characteristics of the plasma gun operated in open air, So that at atmospheric pressure the main parameters were measured.

The gun voltage and discharge current are measured with voltage divider and Rogowiski coil respectively.

From the results recorded we found that, the current lagged the voltage i-e the plasma source has an inductive reactivity.

Moreover, the current value was changed by changing the circuit parameters, including the discharge voltage and circuit inductance, and the wire properties such as the length and diameter.

The maximum gun current ranged between (5 - 50 KA) according to the charging voltage of capacitors between (1-7KV), a typical discharge times are on the orde r of 125 μS.