Experimental Limits Of EEV CX 1812 Thyratron

Abstract

We will discuss our on-going investigation of the operating limits of the English Electric Valve CX 1812 thyratron. The CX 18 12 is a four-gap, hollow-anode thyratron which is rated for a peak anode voltage of 100 kilovolts and a peak anode current of 100 kiloamperes. It is the objective of our program to achieve these 100 kV, 100 kA peak values in a 1-psec pulse with 100 nanosecond rise time. The target pulse repetition frequency is 1 kilohertz. This level of operation would be the highest power operation of a thyratron ever achieved. We will present our approach to achieving this goal and discuss our progress to date. We have completed preliminary aging of the CX 1812 at low-power and lower voltage. We have operated the thyratron at 84 kV and 20 kA at 20 Hz in a resonant RLC circuit, and have run the thyratron for 20 minutes at 75 kV. We have successfully tested a pulse-charging circuit necessary to attain highrep-rate operation. A low-impedance 100-kV PFN is required to achieve the lOO-kV, 100-kA goal and such a network was constructed. This was made more difficult by the pulsewidth and rise time requirement. The status of this project will be reviewed and results to-date will be presented giving an indication of the ultimate limits of this unique thyratron. BACKGROUND In 1993, the U.S. Army Pulse Power Center (PPC) was tasked to investigate the feasibility of producing a pulse power system with the specifications given below. Pulser Design Goals