Investigation of a low prepulse multi-channel self-breaking water switch

A low prepulse high power density water dielectric self-breaking switch has been investigated on FlashⅡgenerator recently. The switch contains two or four gaps, a prepulse shield and supporting hardware. The configuration and equivalent circuit model of the switch are introduced while part parameter calculations are provided in this paper. All gaps of the switch were charged approximately linearly from 0 to 1 MV in 60 ns. The discharge current and the input or output voltages of each gap were measured by a Rogowski coil and CuSO4 resistance dividers respectively. The switches with two gaps and four gaps were experimented respectively. The water switch was discharged with a discharge current about 200 to 550 kA after the gaps were charged and had a mean field of 600 to 900 kV/cm. The jitte