Procyon Experiments Utilizing Foil-fuse Opening Switches

The Los Alamos National Laboratory has applied the explosive magnetic flux compression generator (FCG) technology to the high-energy foil-implosion project, Trailmaster, to reach energy levels unattainable by other methods under current budget constraints. A required component for FCG systems is a power-conditioning stage that matches the slow risetime of the energy source with the fast-risetime requirements of the foil-implosion load. Currently, the Trailmaster concept is based on a two-step process of combining an intermediate power compression stage with a plasma flow switch (PFS) that will deliver energy to an imploding foil on the order of 100 ns. The intermediate power compression stage, which is the main emphasis of this report, consists of an energy storage inductor loaded by the FCG (the energy sauce) and an associated opening and closing switch. In our Procyon testing series, a subtask of the Trailmaster project, we have explored two approaches for opening and closing switches. One uses an explosive opening switch (EFF) and a detonator-initiated closing switch, the topic of another paper at this conference, and the other a resistive fuse opening switch a surface tracking closing switch (STS), the subject of this presentation. This latter concept was successfully tested last summer with amore » complete plasma flow switch assembly except the dynamic implosion foil was replaced by a rigid passive inductive load. We present data on the performance of the fuse opening switch, the surface tracking closing switch, and the plasma flow switch. 7 refs., 9 figs.« less