Fabrication and operation testing of an air-cored pulse transformer for charging a high voltage pulse forming line

A high voltage air-cored helical strip/wire type pulse transformer has been fabricated for charging of a high voltage pulse forming line. As a primary coil, copper strip of 25mm width was wound helically around a MC nylon cylinder. For a secondary coil, copper enameled wire of 1mm diameter was wound around conical cylinder in order to provide insulation between two windings. The coupling coefficient of 0.53 was obtained when two coils were combined coaxially in the insulation oil filled chamber. Voltage gain and energy transfer efficiency were investigated by varying the parameters of primary and secondary circuit. Test results shows that the voltage gain increases up to 17 with increasing the primary capacitance up to 200nF. And highest energy transfer efficiency of 44% was obtained when the dual resonant operation condition was nearly satisfied. The pulse transformer developed in this study can be used for charging the middle conductor of a Blumlein pulse forming line.