2002 journal article

Pulse power system characterization of the plasma interactions with propellants experiment (PIPE) electrothermal plasma gun

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, 30(5), 1852–1857.

By: G. Dale  n & M. Bourham n 

co-author countries: United States of America πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
author keywords: discharge characterization; electrothermal gun; plasma resistance measurement; pulse power systems
Source: Web Of Science
Added: August 6, 2018

The plasma interactions with propellants experiment (PIPE) facility is designed for the study of materials and propellants exposed to a pulsed, high-heat flux plasma produced with an electrothermal plasma gun. PIPE is powered by a single 340-/spl mu/F capacitor with a maximum charging voltage of 10 kV, for a maximum discharge energy of 17 kJ. This paper describes discharge voltage and current measurements made with a high-frequency compensated voltage divider and a Pearson coil. For these experiments, the gun was operated in air at 2 torr at discharge energies between 1.1-8.1 kJ. The maximum current ranged between 10-45 kA. The maximum gun power ranged between 30-160 MW. Typical discharge durations were on the order of 100 /spl mu/s.