Pulse current injection platform with consecutive early-time and intermediate-time high-altitude electromagnetic pulse conducted currents for immunity test of electrical equipment

High-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) has attracted considerable attention for its influence on electrical equipment. HEMP is divided into three parts: early time HEMP (E1), intermediate-time HEMP (E2), and late-time HEMP (E3). Most studies focused on E1 alone, while few investigated others. However, the electrical equipment may be disturbed by more than one part since these three parts co-exist in a HEMP environment. The pulse current injection (PCI) test is an effective immunity test method for evaluating the sensitivity and susceptibility of electrical equipment. To investigate the responses of electrical equipment excited by the consecutive E1 and E2 and compare with those under the individual E1 or E2, this paper builds a PCI platform that can carry out PCI tests with the consecutive E1 and E2 conducted current. To output the E1 current and the E2 current consecutively, which exhibit significant differences in the rise time (20 ns and 1.5 μs), peak current (2500 and 250 A), and full width at half maximum (FWHM, 500-550 ns and 3-5 ms), an E1&E2 coupler with a fast-closing high-current trigger switch is designed in this paper. Finally, some 10-kV epoxy insulators are tested in the developed platform, which shows the capacity of the proposed platform to test the immunity of electrical equipment with the consecutive E1 and E2 conducted current.