Light & Engineering Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 60-64, 2015 Svetotekhnika No. 6, 2014, pp. 39-43 EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH INTO THE ELECTRICAL AND OPTICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ELECTRODELESS UV LAMPS OF THE TRANSFORMER TYPE Vladimir A. Levchenko, Oleg A. Popov, Sergei A. Svitnev, and Pavel V. Starshinov LIT Joint-Stock Company, the Moscow Power Institute National Research University, and the Moscow Physical-and-Technical Institute State University, Moscow E-mail: SvitnevS@yandex.ru ABSTRACT The article presents the results of experimental research into the electric and optical characteristics of a discharge electrodeless UV LP lamp. <...> Induction discharge of the transformer type was excited in the lamp using a mixture of mercury vapour (10–2 mm Hg) with inert gases Ne (60 %) + Ar (40 %) (1 mm Hg) at a frequency of 225 kHz in a closed tubular envelope of quartz glass of 53 mm diameter and 760 mm length. <...> With increase of the lamp power from 80 to 170 W, power losses in its inductor decreased from 45 to 24 W, and energy effi ciency of the lamp discharge part in the mercury line of 253.7 nm increased from 17 to 29 %. <...> Keywords: induction discharge, LP discharge, inductor, UV radiation INTRODUCTION One of the main disadvantages of modern powerful amalgam LP lamps, which are the most widespread artifi cial source of hard UV radiation, is a comparatively low service life (about 12000 h), which is caused by their electrode wear. <...> Also, the induction lamps can work with an signifi cantly lower pressure of the inert gas, which gives additional potential to increase the energy effi ciency of the radiation sources [1, 2]. 60 The studied object of the research was an induction lamp of the transformer type with a discharge closed envelope (tube) of quartz glass (Fig. 1). <...> Overall dimensions of the lamp are 340Ч135 mm, the diameter of the wide envelope part is 53 mm, the diameter of the envelope in the inductor location area is 38 mm. The lamp’s geometrical dimensions were selected to be close to the Endura 150 W (Osram) lamp size. <...> The source of mercury vapour <...>