APELC Delivers High-Voltage Test Bed to UT Arlington for Advanced Insulation Research
Austin, Texas — December 3, 2025– Applied Physical Electronics. L.C. (APELC) has delivered a high-voltage test bed to the Pulsed Power & Energy Lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). The system supports advanced research into how materials behave under high-voltage, fast-rise-time pulse conditions—a key question in designing more compact and cost-effective insulation structures for defense and aerospace applications.
At the core of the test bed is APELC’s MG12-1C-150PF Marx generator, capable of delivering up to 600 kV, 2,250 joules, and tens of kiloamps with a nominal 1 microsecond pulse width. Researchers can adjust load resistance to test across a wide range of voltage and current profiles.
The test chamber routes high-voltage pulses through a material sample holder mounted in-line with the pulse path. Integrated diagnostics capture waveform data and identify the moment of material breakdown in real time.
“This system helps researchers characterize how materials respond to extreme electrical stress,” said Jon Mayes, CEO of APELC. “It supports both threshold testing, how much voltage a material can handle, and long-term fatigue studies over thousands of pulses.”
APELC’s partnership with UTA reflects its broader commitment to supporting academic innovation in pulsed power. By working directly with university labs, APELC gains insight into real-world material performance while providing rugged, configurable hardware tailored to research needs.
“We engineer systems that help researchers generate real data, not just idealized results,” added Mayes. “Those insights help us improve our products and advance the state of the art in high-voltage testing.”
