Construction of the BLUE Linear Transformer Driver System at the University of Michigan

The University of Michigan has received four linear transformer driver (LTD) cavities, which were previously a part of the Ursa Minor experiment at Sandia. As such, the stack has been somewhat facetiously deemed the Bestowed LTD from the Ursa Minor Experiment, or BLUE. BLUE will be capable of delivering up to 8kJ of energy in a ~200ns, ~200kA pulse for high-power microwave and Z-pinch experiments. Currently, the cavities are fully disassembled, and located within a newly-built concrete wall. Based on our existing LTD system, MAIZE, we have begun to consider the charging and triggering sub-systems for BLUE. Our ambitious goal is to rep-rate the entire system as fast as 10Hz, though this may only prove possible with lower voltage and/or lower total capacitance.

We have considered transforming BLUE into a relatively new driver architecture known as an impedance-matched Marx generator, or IMG. An IMG is very similar to an LTD but does not require the ferrite cores, which can represent a significant fraction of an LTD cavity’s weight. We are carefully evaluating other possible issues to determine the feasibility of an LTD-IMG transition with BLUE.