Electrothermal instability growth in magnetically driven pulsed power liners

Journal Article · Sat Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2012 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4751868· OSTI ID:22086145

Peterson, Kyle J; Sinars, Daniel B; Yu, Edmund P; Herrmann, Mark C; Cuneo, Michael E; Slutz, Stephen A; Smith, Ian C; Atherton, Briggs W; Knudson, Marcus D; Nakhleh, Charles ^[1]

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1. Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-1186 (United States)

This paper explores the role of electro-thermal instabilities on the dynamics of magnetically accelerated implosion systems. Electro-thermal instabilities result from non-uniform heating due to temperature dependence in the conductivity of a material. Comparatively little is known about these types of instabilities compared to the well known Magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instability. We present simulations that show electrothermal instabilities form immediately after the surface material of a conductor melts and can act as a significant seed to subsequent MRT instability growth. We also present the results of several experiments performed on Sandia National Laboratories Z accelerator to investigate signatures of electrothermal instability growth on well characterized initially solid aluminum and copper rods driven with a 20 MA, 100 ns risetime current pulse. These experiments show excellent agreement with electrothermal instability simulations and exhibit larger instability growth than can be explained by MRT theory alone.

• OSTI ID: 22086145
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 19; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ACCELERATORS
ALUMINIUM
COPPER
CURRENTS
HEATING
IMPLOSIONS
LINERS
PLASMA SIMULATION
PULSES
RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY
SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES
SURFACES
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE