ECE 653 - Pulsed Power




The department of Electrical and Computer Engineering offers a course on Pulsed Power Science and Technology. This course provides an introduction into the generation, diagnostics, and application of high power electrical pulses. Topics covered are power conditioning, energy storage devices, pulse forming networks, high power switches, and the electrical and optical diagnostics of pulsed power components and systems. Applications of pulsed power technology for lasers, nonthermal plasmas, charged particle beams, and environmental and medical applications will also be discussed.


Typical topics to be covered include:

  • Basic Pulsed Power circuits (capacitive energy storage, inductive energy storge, hard-tube pulse generators, line-type pulse generators)
  • Generation of high voltages
  • Insulation and electrical breakdown (gaseous, liquid, solid)
  • Generation of impulse high voltages (Marx bank, transmission line pulse generator, pulse forming networks, pulse transformers and higher order inversion generators)
  • High power switches (spark gaps, low pressure switches, liquid and solid state switches, solid stage switches, magnetic switches, opening switches)
  • Pulsed high voltage and high current diagnostic
  • Electromagnetic interference (grounding and shielding)
  • High voltage hazards and accidents
  • Applications of pulsed power (energy, medical, military, environment)


Topics/Chapters Spring 2011

1   Jan 11 Part 1: What is Pulsed Power? - Applications in Energy Generation, Recycling, Medicine, and Warfare
Part 2: Prinicples of Energy Compression and Pulse Shaping
2   Jan 18 Basic Pulsed Power Circuits - Part 1: Hard-Tube vs Line-type Pulse Generators, Inductive vs Capacitive Storage, RCL Circuits
Basic Pulsed Power Circuits - Part 2: Pulse Parameter, Load Characteristics, (Stray) Inductance and Capacitances, Car Induction Coils
3   Jan 25 Introduction into PSpice for Pulsed Power Circuit Simulations
Basic Pulsed Power Circuits - Part 3: High Voltage Pulse Discharge Capacitors
4   Feb 1 Basic Pulsed Power Circuits - Part 4: Marx Bank Pulse Generators
5   Feb 8 Insulators - Part 1: Gaseous Insulators: Gas Discharge Characteristics, Ionization Processes, Townsend Mechanism, Streamer Mechanism, Paschen Curve
Insulators - Part 2: Liquid Insulators - Conduction in Liquids, Suspended and Particle Breakdown Mechanism, Cavity Breakdown, Sub-Microsecond Breakdown (CBE-Experiments on Breakdown in Polar Liquids)
6   Feb 15 Insulators - Part 3: Solid Insulators - Intrinsic Breakdown, Edge Breakdown and Treeing, Erosion Breakdown
Introduction into EStat for Electric Field Simulations
7   Feb 22 Electric Field Simulations - Finite Element Method
Generation of High Voltages - Part 1: Mechanical Voltage/Current Generators (Homopolar Generator, Van de Graaff Generator)
8   Mar 1 Generation of High Voltages - Part 2: Transformers and Pulsed High Voltage Transformers: Equivalent Circuit Description, Air Core Transformers, Resonant Charging, Tesla Transformer
9   Mar 8 Pulsed High Voltage and Pulsed High Current Diagnostics: Electrical and Optical Methods
10   Mar 16 Generation of High Voltages - Part 2: High Voltage Power Supplies, DC Voltage Multiplication Circuits (Greinacher, Cockroft-Walton)
11   Mar 22 Electrical Accidents and Injuries - High Voltage Safety
Lab-class 1: "Build a 1-kV Cockroft-Walton Circuit from a 9-V Battery"
12   Mar 29 High Power Switches - Part 1: Requirements and Design Criteria, Switch Categories, Spark Gap Switches (Design, Triggering, Recovery)
High Power Switches - Part 2: Thyratrons, Ignitrons, Pseudospark-Switches, Semiconductor Switches
-   Apr 5 SPRING BREAK
13   Apr 12 Pulse Forming Lines and Networks - Part 1: Transmission Lines, Impedance Transformers, Transmission Line Pulse Generators
Pulse Forming Lines and Networks - Part 2: Blumlein Line Pulse Generators, Pulse Forming Networks, Guillemin Networks
14   Apr 19 Lab-class 2: "Build and Diagnose a Blumlein Line Pulse Generator from a 50-Ω Coaxial Cable, which is Charged by Cockroft-Walton Circuit (Lab-class 1)"
15   Apr 26 Electromagnetic Interference: Grounding and Shielding Techniques
-   May 3 FINAL


Juergen Kolb, March 2011






Topics/Chapters Spring 2008

1   Jan 15 Introduction to Pulsed Power: energy compression, examples
2   Jan 17 Basic Pulsed Power Circuits - Part 1: hard-tube vs line-type pulse generators, inductive vs capacitive storage, RC circuits; Introduction to pulsed circuit simulations (with PSpice)
3   Jan 22 Basic Pulsed Power Circuits - Part 2: pulse parameter, load characteristics, (stray) inductance and capacitance calculations, car induction coils
4   Jan 24 High Voltage Capacitors (equivalent series resistance, polarization and leakage currents)
5   Jan 29 High Voltage Capacitors - Continued
6   Jan 31 Insulators - Part 1: gaseous insulators: gas discharge characteristics, ionization processes, Townsend mechanism, streamer Mechanism, Paschen's law
7   Feb 5 Insulators - Part 1 cont'd: conclusions from breakdown mechanisms, breakdown in non-uniform fields, partial breakdown, corona discharge, vacuum breakdown, surface flashover; Introduction to electrostatic field simulations (with EStat)
8   Feb 7 Insulators - Part 2: solid insulators - intrinsic breakdown, edge breakdown and treeing, erosion breakdown; electrostatic field simulations
9   Feb 12 Insulators - Part 3: liquid insulators - conduction in liquids, suspended and particle breakdown mechanism, cavity breakdown, sub-microsecond breakdown; CBE-experiments on breakdown in polar liquids
10   Feb 14 Questions and Answers
11   Feb 19 Generation of High Voltages - Part 1: mechanical voltage/current generators: homopolar generator, Wimhurst generator, van de Graaff generator
12   Feb 21 Generation of High Voltages - Part 2: transformers - principle, equivalent circuit real pulsed power transformer, aircore transformers, dual resonant charging, Tesla transformer
13   Feb 21 Generation of High Voltages - Part 3: high voltage power supplies, dc voltage multiplication circuits (Greinacher, Cockroft-Walton)
14   Feb 28 Lab-class 1: "Build a 1-kV Cockroft-Walton circuit from a 9-V battery"
15   Mar 4 Midterm rehearsal session
-   Mar 6 MIDTERM
16   Mar 13 Lab-class 2: "Build and diagnose a 10-ns/50-Ω Blumlein line pulse generator (charged by the 1-kV Cockroft-Walton circuit)"
17   Mar 18 Generation of Impulse High Voltages - Part 1: Marx bank
18   Mar 20 Generation of Impulse High Voltages - Part 2: Transmission line pulse generator - theory
19   Mar 25 Generation of Impulse High Voltages - Part 3: Transmission line pulse generators - theory and example, Tapered transmission lines (transmission line pulse transformers)
20   Mar 25 Generation of Impulse High Voltages - Part 4: Blumlein line pulse generators - theory and example
21   Mar 27 Generation of Impulse High Voltages - Part 5: Stacked transmission line pulse generator, Selfmatched transmission line pulse generator, Spiral generator, Guillemin networks
22   Apr 10 Questions and Answers
23   Apr 15 High Power Switches - Part 1: Requirements and design criteria, Switch categories, Spark gaps (design, triggering, recovery)
24   Apr 17 High Power Switches - Part 2: vacuum tubes, thyratrons, ignitrons, pseudospark-switches
25   Apr 22 Electromagnetic Interference - Grounding and Shielding
26   Apr 24 Pulsed High Voltage and Pulsed High Current Measurements
27   Apr 29 Last day of classes: final rehearsal
-   May 6 FINAL


Juergen Kolb, October 2010




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