Observation of fast expansion velocity with insulating tungsten wires on ∼80 kA facility
- State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049 (China)
- State Key Laboratory of Intense Pulsed Radiation Simulation and Effect, Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, Xi'an 710024 (China)
This paper presents experimental results on the effects of insulating coatings on tungsten planar wire array Z-pinches on an 80 kA, 100 ns current facility. Expansion velocity is obviously increased from ∼0.25 km/s to ∼3.5 km/s by using the insulating coatings. It can be inferred that the wire cores are in gaseous state with this fast expansion velocity. An optical framing camera and laser probing images show that the standard wire arrays have typical ablation process which is similar to their behaviors on mega-ampere facilities. The ablation process and precursor plasma are suppressed for dielectric tungsten wires. The wire array implosion might be improved if these phenomena can be reproduced on Mega-ampere facilities.
- OSTI ID:
- 22600021
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 23, Issue 7; Other Information: (c) 2016 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Structure of the dense cores and ablation plasmas in the initiation phase of tungsten wire-array Z pinches
Experiments measuring the initial energy deposition, expansion rates and morphology of exploding wires with about 1 kA/wire