Optimization of reluctance accelerator efficiency by an improved discharging circuit

In this paper, an improved discharging circuit was proposed to quicken the decay of the current in the drive coil in a reluctance accelerator when the armature reaches the center of the coil. The aim of this is to prevent the suck-back effect caused by the residual current in drive coil. The method is adding a reverse charging branch with a small capacitor in the traditional pulsed discharging circuit. The results under the traditional circuit and the improved circuit were compared in a simulation. The experiment then verified the simulations and they had good agreement. Simulation and experiment both demonstrated the improved circuit can effectively prevent the suck-back effect and increase the efficiency. At the voltage of 800 V, an efficiency increase of 36.34% was obtained.