Fast Discharge Acyclic Machines

The paper discusses the feasibility of designing and developing fast discharge down to a few milliseconds range acyclic machines as pulse-power for experiments in controlled thermonuclear fusion, such as Reference Theta Pinch Reactor (R. T. P. R.). An equivalent circuit for the system (machine and the load) considered as a T.E M wave guide is derived. This equivalent circuit takes into consideration the penetration of the electromagnetic fieId in the rotor. Two basic topological alternatives of the acyclic machine are compared and performance and design equations are derived. The expressions relating the parameters of the short circuited machine with the parameters of the system through the coefficients of compatibility are given and the physical limitations are evaluated. Extrapolation of results obtained by discharging 0.55 million amperes from a 5MJ acyclic machine already built and preliminary stress calculations show that the fast discharge machines are feasible from mechanical considerations also.