Testing of the Mark 101 magnetic flux compression generator

The Mark 101 explosive flux compression generator is a line-initiated, vacuum/magnetically insulated, helical generator. This device offered some unique challenges in transforming the theoretical design into a testable experiment. The two main reasons for this are that in theory an eight-turn, four-wire Mark 101 possesses a terminal dL/dt of approx.0.5 ..cap omega.. and operates with electric fields which are greater than the threshold for electron field emission. With this in mind, we designed an integral vacuum-jacket-generator configuration with a passive load inductance of less than or equal to0.5 ..mu..H. The generator contained approx.8 ..mu..H of initial inductance. The field emission required the stator to be entirely sealed within the vacuum jacket. The open, helical stator resulted in the presence of non-trivial leakage fields and voltages. To accommodate these fields, the vacuum chamber for the generator was segmented and axially insulated with rings of acrylic, similar to stacked-ring diodes. We made no attempt to break the azimuthal metal surfaces due to the physical difficulty this would incur. Diagnostics included an input current Rogowski loop, a load Rogowski loop, two dB/dt probes in the load, a Faraday fiber-optic current sensor, and two dB/dt probes in the region between the stator winding andmore » the vacuum jacket to measure the leakage azimuthal and axial magnetic fields. The results of explosive tests are presented.« less