Development of a 200-kJ Capacitive Pulsed Power System for Vehicular Electrothermal-Chemical Launcher

This article has designed a 200-kJ pulsed power system (PPS) for electrothermal-chemical (ETC) guns to be installed in combat vehicle. The PPS consists of a pulse-forming network, a primary power, a high-voltage (HV) charger, and a remote control system. Two independent 100-kJ pulsed power units (PPUs) are integrated in a compact frame to build the pulse-forming network. A charging system consisting of a primary power and a 30-kW charger charges two PPUs simultaneously, and it is also integrated into the PPS. In each PPU, a pulse capacitor, a semiconductor switch stack, an inductor, a dump device, and a data acquisition system are integrated. The PPU is designed to achieve a peak output current up to 30 kA at a maximum charging voltage of 10 kV. After all the subsystems are integrated, the equivalent experiments are carried out with resistive load. The experimental results show that the PPS can flexibly adjust the output current waveform to meet the application requirements. The design ideas and results in this article have engineering application value in improving the performance of a PPS-based ETC launch system.