Engineering feasibility evaluation of a peristaltic pinch

A recent proposal for reducing the end loss of a linear theta pinch is to produce moving magnetic mirrors at the coil ends. The concept entails the sequential pulsing of an axially arranged series of two-turn coaxial coils. The electrical design of such a system presents some unique problems. Ideally, the individual pulse circuits should be completely independent. This would facilitate the design by eliminating interactive effects. In practice, the circuits must be interconnected through isolating inductors to enable the production of a uniform biasing magnetic field. Moreover, the coils must be located physically close together. This produces strong magnetic coupling between the pulse circuits, which can seriously affect the shape and speed of the inward-moving magnetic-mirror field. Possible systems were modeled for the NET-2 circuit analysis code. The models took account of the inductive coupling between the individual circuits in the model. The results show that an increasing magnetic mirror can be produced provided the radius of the theta pinch is not too great compared to the intercoil spacing. The peristaltic field can be maintained for several cycles in the inner coils. The voltage hold-off requirements on the pulse circuit switches are found to be severe, but not impossible to meet