Recovery of a gas-blown spark gap with preionization

Abstract

The authors present a recovery model that explains the plateau that has been observed in the recovery of gas-blown and static pulse-charged spark gaps. By careful analysis of the characteristic breakdown curves, it has been established that the initial recovery of the gap represents the return of the gap's intrinsic breakdown strength, while final recovery corresponds to the return of an anomalously high overvoltage caused by significant statistical breakdown delay.<>