Graham Sutherland / PolynomialStyroPyro is back, and he has procured 400 car batteries.
YouTube
the Z-pinch in the copper plates is one of the most bonkers things I've ever seen.
I feel like we should get IXYS or Infineon to sponsor him, and get some of their engineers to develop a parallel SCR or IGBT driver that can actually handle the load. hard to imagine a more effective way to demonstrate a product's robustness than that.
"hey man, here's an IBC container full of mineral oil and IGBTs. enjoy!"
the more I think about it then more I am certain that this thing would be far more terrifying if you could have a microsecond rise time on those 160kA, at least at the switch side (the inductance in the cables might limit it somewhat)
yeah uh at 160kA/μs the entire battery voltage would be negated by *checks notes* 375pH of inductance, which is on a par with the package inductance of an 0201 part (not including the mounting inductance)
so I don't think that rise time will be achievable at the load. but still, make the switch that fast and you'll get some wild effects.
I love this, so I@gsuberland hell I’m wondering what kind of mechanical switchgear would be needed for that much DC current in the first place
@jpm if it exists it's probably a parallel set of high speed hydraulic rams in a pressurised SF6 environment or something.
@gsuberland now I’m wondering what kind of stuff is hiding inside HVDC substations, probably would be similar
Russ Garrett@jpm @gsuberland HVDC systems have their circuit breakers on the AC side because it's so much easier to break fault currents on AC.
Lack of reliable HVDC circuit breakers is what's stopped us building more complex HVDC grids so far, but there's a *lot* of work currently going into that:
https://library.e.abb.com/public/3b6db5ddd75590bfc1257ba50027f74d/06-13%202m309_EN_72dpi.pdf