Current density distributions on the cathode plates of inductive voltage cells

Based on three-dimension electromagnetic models of a single-stage inductive voltage cell, the effects of arrangements of driving pulse forming lines (PFLs) and the mistiming of parallel PFLs on the azimuthal uniformity of current density distributions are investigated. The simulation results indicate that, as the number of PFLs increases from one to four, the current uniformity improves evidently, with asymmetric coefficient reduced from 25.9% to 1.0%. The mistiming of PFLs would cause current density to become asymmetric. For the given feed pulse with a risetime of 25 ns and duration of 60-70 ns, as two PFLs feed the cells, the time deviation of 20 ns could be acceptable, without causing any obvious degradation on the current uniformity and cell outputs.