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Types of High voltage generators

1. AC voltage generators
2. DC voltage generators
3. Impulse voltage generators

AC voltage generators
1.CASCADE TRANSFORMERS
When test voltage requirements are >300kv, a single transformer can be
used for test purposes. For higher voltage requirements,
- A single unit construction becomes difficult and costly due to insulation
problems.
- Transportation and assembly of large transformers become difficult.
These drawbacks are overcome by a series connection (or cascading) of
several identical units of transformers, in which the high voltage windings
of all the units are in series.

Disadvantages of this scheme


-

Expensive and require more space.

The Advantages of this scheme


-

Natural cooling is sufficient


The transformers are light and compact
Transportation and assembly is easy
The construction is identical for isolating transformers and HV cascade
units.

2.TESLA COILS
Used to generate high frequency a.c high voltage, also known as high
frequency resonant transformers.
High frequency a.c high voltages are required for rectifier d.c power supplies
and testing electrical apparatus for switching surges.

The advantages of Tesla coil


-

The absence of iron core in transformers and hence saving in cost and
size
Pure sine wave output
Slow build-up of voltage over a few cycles and hence no damage due to
switching surges
Uniform distribution of voltage across the winding coils due to subdivision
of coil stack into a number of units

Impulse voltage generators


1.MARX GENERATOR
A Marx generator is an electrical circuit first described by Erwin Otto Marx
in 1924. Its purpose is to generate a high-voltage pulse from a lowvoltage DC supply. Marx generators are used in high-energy physics
experiments, as well as to simulate the effects of lightning on power-line
gear and aviation equipment. A bank of 36 Marx generators is used by
Sandia National Laboratories to generate X-rays in their Z Machine.

DC voltage generator circuits


1.CockcroftWalton generator
The CockcroftWalton (CW) generator, or multiplier, is an electric circuit
that generates a high DC voltage from a low-voltage AC or pulsing DC input. It
was named after the British and Irish physicists John Douglas Cockcroft and
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton, who in 1932 used this circuit design to power
their particle accelerator, performing the first artificial nuclear disintegration in
history. They used this voltage multiplier cascade for most of their research,
which in 1951 won them the Nobel Prize in Physics for "Transmutation of
atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles". Less well known is
the fact that the circuit was discovered much earlier, in 1919, by Heinrich
Greinacher, a Swiss physicist. For this reason, this doubler cascade is
sometimes also referred to as the Greinacher multiplier. CockcroftWalton
circuits are still used in particle accelerators. They also are used in everyday
electronic devices that require high voltages, such as X-ray machines,
television sets, and photocopiers.

2.Van de Graaff generator


A Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic generator which uses a moving
belt to accumulate electric charge on a hollow metal globe on the top of an
insulated column, creating very high electric potentials. It produces very high
voltage direct current (DC) electricity at low current levels. It was invented by
American physicist Robert J. Van de Graaff in 1929. The potential difference
achieved in modern Van de Graaff generators can reach 5 megavolts. A
tabletop version can produce on the order of 100,000 volts and can store
enough energy to produce a visible spark. Small Van de Graaff machines are
produced for entertainment, and in physics education to teach electrostatics;
larger ones are displayed in science museums.
The Van de Graaff generator was developed as a particle accelerator in
physics research, its high potential is used to accelerate subatomic particles to
high speeds in an evacuated tube. It was the most powerful type of

accelerator in the 1930s until the cyclotron was developed. Today it is still
used as an accelerator to generate energetic particle and x-ray beams in fields
such as nuclear medicine. In order to double the voltage, two generators are
often used together, one generating positive and the other negative potential;
this is called a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator. For example, the
Brookhaven National Laboratory Tandem Van de Graaff achieves about 30
million volts of potential difference.
The voltage produced by an open-air Van de Graaff machine is limited by
arcing and corona discharge to about 5 megavolts. Most modern industrial
machines are enclosed in a pressurized tank of insulating gas; these can
achieve potentials up to about 25 megavolts.

3. Wimshurst machine

It has a distinctive appearance with two large contra-rotating discs mounted in a


vertical plane, two crossed bars with metallic brushes, and a spark gap formed by
two metal spheres
In a Wimshurst machine, the two insulated discs and their metal sectors rotate in
opposite directions passing the crossed metal neutralizer bars and their brushes. An
imbalance of charges is induced, amplified, and collected by two pairs of metal
combs with points placed near the surfaces of each disk. These collectors are
mounted on insulating supports and connected to the output terminals. The positive
feedback increases the accumulating charges exponentially until the dielectric
breakdown voltage of the air is reached and an electric spark jumps across the gap.

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