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.
robryk@gsuberland I was kinda confused why, for pipe squashing, he didn't put a "fuse" (a steel bolt or sth like that) in parallel with the pipe. The issue was that the rise time was too long due to, in part, inductance of the whole circuit, so shorting with a "fuse" would certainly improve on the inductive part. Do you know if I'm obviously wrong somewhere?
@robryk it may have worked, but the footage would be more difficult to discern due to the fuse exploding.
@gsuberland I'm watching the video bit by bit, and he does mention pulse-forming networks at some point. I wonder if he discounted the one he actually has or didn't consider it.