Chemically etched modulation in wire radius for wire array Z-pinch perturbation studies
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87123 (United States)
A technique for manufacturing wires with imposed modulation in radius with axial wavelengths as short as 1 mm is presented. Extruded aluminum 5056 with 15 {mu}m diameter was masked and chemically etched to reduce the radius by {approx}20% in selected regions. Characterized by scanning electron microscopy, the modulation in radius is a step function with a {approx}10 {mu}m wide conical transition between thick and thin segments, with some pitting in etched regions. Techniques for mounting and aligning these wires in arrays for fast z-pinch experiments will be discussed. Axially mass-modulated wire arrays of this type will allow the study of seeded Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in z pinches, corona formation, wire initiation with varying current density in the wire core, and correlation of perturbations between adjacent wires. This tool will support magnetohydrodynamics code validation in complex three-dimensional geometries, and perhaps x-ray pulse shaping.
- OSTI ID:
- 20644026
- Journal Information:
- Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 75, Issue 11; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.1808371; (c) 2004 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0034-6748
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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