Development of the BLUE LTD System at the University of Michigan

In this paper, we present recent experimental data from the BLUE LTD system presently being developing in the University of Michigan’s Plasma, Pulsed Power, and Microwave Laboratory. BLUE is a Linear Transformer Driver (LTD) system comprised of up to 4 LTD cavities stacked in series. The 1^st LTD cavity was successfully assembled and tested in 2020,[i] and the 2^nd cavity is currently under construction. When completed, the 4-cavity system will be able to store up to 8 kJ of energy, which can be released as an 800-kV (open circuit), 100-ns pulse, with a peak current of up to 240 kA into a matched load. This pulse can be coupled with high-energy-density physics (HEDP) loads (e.g., x pinches, z pinches, and dense plasma focuses) and high-power microwave (HPM) loads (e.g., magnetrons). Of particular interest is the HPM load called the magnetically insulated line oscillator (MILO).[ii]  We will provide updates on the BLUE system construction and present recent experimental data from a MILO driven on BLUE, where 1.2-GHz microwave oscillations have been successfully generated.

 

[i] B. Sporer et al., “Testing of the First BLUE Linear Transformer Driver (LTD) Cavity at the University of Michigan,” presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, Virtual, Nov. 2020.

[ii] D. A. Packard et al., “HFSS and CST Simulations of a GW-Class MILO,” IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 1894–1901, Jun. 2020.