Arc erosion characteristics of pseudospark discharge in multiaperture geometry

Analysis of discharge mechanism in especially designed pseudosparks that facilitate pseudospark characteristic low-erosive conduction at very high currents is presented. The alternate formulation of criterion for transition to arc discharge phase developed here enables us to account for the emergence of arcs at each aperture after a threshold electric charge is transmitted in these devices. The use of a large number of apertures is found to have no influence on discharge condition that initiates arc formation at individual apertures.