I was reading a thesis that studied spark gap losses recently. Although the test apparatus (electrode material, diameter, and gap spacing) does not match exactly what you would find in a typical tesla coil, I found the results very interesting. The closest to the tesla coil scenario was the following from the paper.
1. Electrode material: copper-tungsten
2. Electrode diameter: 2.5 cm
3. Gap spacing: 1.4 cm
4. Trigger voltage: ~30K volts
5. Trigger energy: ~1K joule
6. Air at 1 atmosphere
The test results at these conditions measured an energy loss of about 7%. If I extrapolate these results to my 4800 watt coil, I am losing about 336 watts in the rotary spark gap. This is less than I imagined since I have always been lead to believe that the spark gap was very lossy.
Does anyone else have any other data which shows the loss caused by a spark gap?
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