A battery-powered flux compression generator system

Flux compression generators (FCGs) are primarily used as energy amplifiers. While a FCG can be made small, typically the ''seed'' energy that the FCG amplifies comes from a capacitator bank much larger and heavier than the FCG. If seed energy was supplied by a compact device, FCGs could be used as portable power supplies. One application of interest is to combine a compact seed source with a FCG and transformer. The result would be a self-contained power supply capable of producing a microsecond long, megavolt pulse. The objective of the work described in this paper was to make a seed source capable of energizing a standard Los Alamos plate FCG. The power supply was to be relatively small, light weight, and able to deliver at least 100-kJ to a 280-nH inductive load, e.g., plate FCG. 4 figs., 2 tabs.