Initiation and assembly of the plasma in a plasma flow switch
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering
A series of fast opening switch experiments was carried out on the Pegasus pulsed power facility. The first series of experiments characterized the assembly and run down of a 50 mg plasma flow switch operating in the 6 MA regime. The switch plasma arises from the vaporization of a wire array and a barrier foil. Arrays with different numbers of wires were examined. Two-dimensional (2-D) radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the initial vaporization stage of the array plasma and its assembly on the barrier foil are presented, which include the effects of initial perturbations on the evolution of the switch plasma as it moves down a coaxial gun barrel. Sparse wire arrays were observed to perform poorly. A change in the experimental design, motivated by 2-D simulations, led to improved performance. Computational results which lead to these changes are discussed, and the results are compared with experimental data.
- OSTI ID:
- 264388
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 24, Issue 2; Other Information: PBD: Apr 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Modeling of plasma flow switches at low, intermediate and high energies
Design and characterization of the Pegasus I plasma flow switch