15 KJ Flash Lamp, Power Conditioning Unit designed for safety, reliability & manufacturability

Abstract

A 15kJoule, Flash Lamp Power Conditioning Unit has been successfully designed, developed, and deployed in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) Preamplifier Modules (PAM). The primary design philosophy of this power conditioning unit (PCU) is safety, reliability, and manufacturability. Cost reduction over commercially equivalent systems was also achieved through an easily manufactured packaging design optimized to meet NIF requirements. While still maintaining low cost, the PCU design includes a robust control system, fault diagnostic system, and safety features. The pulsed power design includes 6 PFN modules, each including a dual series injection trigger transformer, that drive a total of 12 flash lamp loads. The lamps are individually triggered via a 20kV pulse produced by a 1kV, MCT switched capacitive discharge unit on the primary side of the trigger transformer. The remote control interface includes an embedded controller that captures flash lamp current wave forms and fault status for each shot. The embedded controller provides the flexibility of remotely adjusting both the main drive voltage from 1.6 to 2.5 kV and the trigger voltage from 0 to 20 kV.