Circuit model of Rimfire switch

A cascade gaps circuit model for Rimfire switch has been developed. The circuit model includes all stray capacitances and spark channel on-state conduction characteristics. It can not only describe the behavior of Rimfire switch, but also allow analysis of the time varying voltage and current at each part of the switch, describing the internal characters of the switch. PSpice was used to implement the cascade gaps circuit model and simulate a 700 kV Rimfire switch. The simulation shows that, the voltage of the whole switch will be higher than 700 kV when the laser triggered section has broken down but all cascade gaps keep dielectric, and the voltage of all gaps attenuates with high frequency oscillation.