Explosively pumped flux compression generator

The first work on these generators was conducted by the VNIIEF center for nuclear research in Sarov in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1950s followed by Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States.

At the start of the 1950s, the need for very short and powerful electrical pulses became evident to Soviet scientists conducting nuclear fusion research.

The Marx generator, which stores energy in capacitors, was the only device capable at the time of producing such high power pulses.

The prohibitive cost of the capacitors required to obtain the desired power motivated the search for a more economical device.

The technique is made possible when the time scales over which the device operates are sufficiently brief that resistive current loss is negligible, and the magnetic flux through any surface surrounded by a conductor (copper wire, for example) remains constant, even though the size and shape of the surface may change.

For this reason, reducing the area of the surface enclosed by a closed loop conductor with a magnetic field passing through it, which would reduce the magnetic flux, results in the induction of current in the electrical conductor, which tends to keep the enclosed flux at its original value.

An external magnetic field (blue lines) threads a closed ring made of a perfect conductor (with zero resistance).

A. Chvileva undertook the first experiment with this type of generator, with the goal of obtaining a very high magnetic field.

Helical generators were principally conceived to deliver an intense current to a load situated at a safe distance.