Re: Tesla coil applications

["Marco Denicolai" <Marco.Denicolai-at-tellabs.fi> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)]

"Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com> on 27.08.2000 01:41:48

To:   tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
cc:    (bcc: Marco Denicolai/MARTIS)
Subject:  Re: Tesla coil applications



Original poster: "Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz" <acmq-at-compuland-dot-com.br>

>Capacitor discharge Tesla coils are seen in serious use today only in
>some high-energy pulse generators for research.
>
>Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz

Hello.

I have got/read several papers about use of Tesla coils for:

- testing of dielectric materials
- testing of insulators for HV transformers (discrete components made of
porcelain, etc.)
- testing of vacuum goodness (lamps, glass fillings, etc.)
- test of HV circuit breakers

Here some text clipped from a paper I wrote:

- Insulation materials used in high-voltage switched-mode power supplies are
exposed to
both high frequencies and high voltages. Traditional tests performed with high
DC voltages
might not reveal the true ageing effects occurring during rated operation:
successful experiments
have been conducted using high-frequence, high-voltage power sources [Har98].
Although it is difficult to control the generated wave-shapes, the damped high
frequency oscillations
of Tesla Coils are somewhat similar to typical transient disturbances found in
power systems (e.g.
caused by switching operations or by arcing to ground). Therefore TCs can be
used as a supplement to
the Marx generator for insulator testing [Phu91] and synthetic testing of
circuit breakers [Dam87].

- Sources of short high-voltage pulses with high repetition rate are considered
to be of interest for a number of
problems: for instance, they can be used to generate ultra-wide electromagnetic
radiation to measure objects to a
high precision or powerful microwave pulses with 3-cm wavelength [Gub97].
Numerous papers have been published with particular emphasis on the use of a TC
in relativistic electron beam generators
[Hof75, Mat82]: its main advantages over the Marx generator are high repetition
rates of operation and low cost because of
the lower number of capacitors used.
Tesla Coil use is also reported in a series of compact and portable devices to
drive cold-cathode e-beam tubes and X-ray
tubes [Mes95]: applications include express spectral analysis of minerals and
jewels, as well as rapid radiography on-field.

- Recent research on natural lightning has been motivated by the desire to
prevent spectacular accidents, such as occurred in
1969 during the launch of Apollo 12 [God70] and in 1987 during the launch of
Atlas-Centaur 67 [Bus87].
While cloud-to-ground lightning has been studied more extensively,
cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-air discharges still need
to be understood more thoroughly as they occur less frequently and
therefore are
 more difficult to be
investigated [Uma87]. Field observations of lightning can reveal directly
little
 of the physics of the phenomenon:
the propagation process and the leader velocity are best studied by scaling of
laboratory sparks [Les77, Les81].
In pre-war work Allibone and Meek had succeeded to demonstrate the existence of
a laboratory analogue to the lightning
stepped leader discovered by Schonland in 1933 [Wat96].

Regards