Recovery Characteristics of Exploding Wire Fuses in Air and Vacuum

摘要

The dielectric strength of exploded wire fuses during the vaporization and after recovery period and the resistivity of the opening fuses are functions of time and depend on the medium surrounding the fuse channel. These parameters determine the efficiency of power flow from the storage system to the load. Specifically, design of experiments using loads with variable impedance, such as imploding plasmas, require detailed information on the fuse characteristics during the time when the load impedance is changing. To provide data that determines the interaction between fuses and variable impedance loads, inductive and recovery electric fields and fuse resistance in air and vacuum were studied. The results show the inductive field amplitude follows the dependence on vaporization time similar to that established for other media and for longer vaporization times. The characteristics of recovery rate of fuses in air and vacuum differ drastically due to the early onset of ionization in fuse channels in vacuum. (Author)