Non-permanent excitation of piezoelectric transformers

The work describes and investigates non-permanent (pulsed) excitation of piezoelectric transformers (PT). Background, of the investigations was the requirement of a higher peak power for a PT. Driven non-permanently, a PT can be overloaded up to a certain level. Some technical applications require a high power for a finite time, transferred by a relatively small transformer. An example is the ignition of gas discharge lamps as one task for electronic ballast systems. Some of these lamps have a very high ignition voltage, so that the use of a separate piezoelectric transformer for ignition may be useful.