Results of the Installation of a Prepulse Reduction System on the PIM Blumlein

In the PIM pulsed power machine a 1.5 MV, 100 ns duration pulse is generated by a 10 Ohm water Blumlein A prepulse reduction system based on a gas switch has been designed and built by Titan PSD. This has been fitted and reduced the prepulse to less than 3 kV. Prepulse of this order is necessary to drive the focused e-beam diodes used for flash radiography. Details of the prepulse reduction system, the experimental data obtained and comparison with computer models of the machine will be presented.