Experiments on planar plasma flow switches at Los Alamos
- and others
The authors have performed a series of experiments on the Colt facility at Los Alamos to study the performance of plasma flow switches and to understand the important physics issues which affect that performance. These experiments were done in planar geometry on a small machine to allow for better diagnostic access and a higher repetition rate. The Colt facility is a capacitor bank which stores 300 kJ at maximum charge and produced a peak current of 1.1 MA in 2.0 microseconds for these experiments. The diagnostics used for these experiments included an array of b-dot probes, visible framing pictures, visible spectroscopy, and laser interferometry. Characteristics of the switch are determined from spatial and temporal profiles of the magnetic field and the spatial profile and temperature of the switch plasma. Here the authors present results from experiments for a variety of switch conditions.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 561138
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-97-3981; CONF-9706113-; ON: DE98001600; TRN: 98:000229
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 11. IEEE international pulsed power conference, Baltimore, MD (United States), 29 Jun - 2 Jul 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Fusion engineering at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
Analysis of data from z-pinch MTF target plasma experiments