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Re: [TCML] Spark gap loss

Here is the title page info from the thesis:

******************************************

ARC CURRENT, VOLTAGE, AND RESISTANCE IN
A HIGH ENERGY, GAS-FILLED SPARK GAP

by
BRIAN LANE MAAS, B.S.E.E

A THESIS IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

May 1985

******************************************

I found it on the internet. Unfortunately I have lost the link and I only have the thesis in PDF format. The study seems to be quite thorough. There are a lot of curves and tables comparing the loss using various materials, gases, pressures, and gap sizes. If anyone would like a copy, post or send me your E-Mail address and I will send you the PDF.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bert Hickman" <bert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Tesla Coil Mailing List" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2017 8:00:01 PM
Subject: Re: [TCML] Spark gap loss

Hi Steve,

Sounds very interesting. What is the title and author for the thesis?

If the TRIGGER energy was 1 kJ(!), the energy of the main pulse must 
have been really huge. Many years ago I measured the effective 
resistance of the trigatron spark gap I previously used to use in my 
coin shrinker. At a peak current of 10 kA, gap resistance was about 20 
milliohms. At 80 kA, gap resistance dropped down to about 2.5 milliohms.

There are several gap loss studies for Tesla Coils in the TCML archives. 
A fairly good one can be found in the TCML Archives - see thread "Vortex 
gap loss measurements" initiated by Gary Lau. In 2000, Gary took 
detailed measurements of his vortex spark gap and I did a subsequent 
analysis based on the data. He compared his vortex gap to a vacuum gap.

https://www.pupman.com/listarchives/2000/September/msg00038.html
(Note - the links in the above posting are broken, but the information 
for the vortex and vacuum gaps can be found on Gary's updated site:
http://www.laushaus.com/tesla/vortexgap.htm
http://www.laushaus.com/tesla/onegap.htm

My analysis of Gary's data is here:
https://www.pupman.com/listarchives/2000/September/msg00145.html

The calculated gap resistances for Gary's gaps were between 430-520 
milliohms.

There are other interesting comments in this thread that you may also 
find useful.

In 2007 Greg Leyh measured the spark gap resistance of a rotary gap in 
his model 120L50K Tesla coil. At 4200 peak amps, he measured a total gap 
resistance of 650 milliohms. Although not stated, I am guessing that the 
rotary probably had 4 gaps in series, so each gap had about 163 
milliohms. For comparison, a 4500 volt silicon switch measured only 5 
milliohms at 4350 peak amps (since Vsat is much lower than the hundreds 
of volts typically seen per spark gap. See 
https://www.pupman.com/listarchives/2007/Dec/msg00196.html

An earlier discussion from 1999 shows results from wireless pioneers 
Slaby and Zenneck over 100 years ago on HV spark gap-switched RLC 
circuits. Gap resistance ranged between 0.01 to 7.0 ohms depending on 
gap spacing and tank capacitance.
See https://www.pupman.com/listarchives/1999/August/msg00101.html

Hope this helped and best wishes,

Bert

Steve White wrote:
> 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?
> _______________________________________________
> Tesla mailing list
> Tesla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> https://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
> 
> 
> 


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