Pulsed Power Hydrodynamics: An Application of Pulsed Power and High Magnetic Fields to the Exploration of Material Properties and Problems in Experimental Hydrodynamics

Pulsed Power Hydrodynamics (PPH) is an evolving application of low-impedance pulsed power technology to the study of problems in advanced hydrodynamics, instabilities, turbulence, and material properties in a highly precise, controllable environment at the currently achievable extremes of pressure and material velocity. The Atlas facility, designed and built by Los Alamos, is the world´s first, and only, laboratory pulsed power system designed specifically for this relatively new family of pulsed power applications and joins an ensemble of low impedance, high current drivers, around the world, that contribute to advancing the field of Pulsed Power Hydrodynamics. The high-precision, cylindrically imploding liner is the tool most frequently used to convert electromagnetic energy into the hydrodynamic (particle kinetic) energy needed to drive strong shocks, quasi-isentropic compression, or large volume adiabatic compression for the experiments. At typical parameters, a 30-gr, 1-mm-thick liner with an initial radius of 5-cm, and a moderate current of 20 MA can be accelerated to 7.5 km/sec producing megabar shocks in medium density targets. Velocities up to 20 km/sec and pressures ≫20 Mbar in high density targets are possible. The first Atlas liner implosion experiments were conducted in Los Alamos in September 2001 and 16 experiments were conducted in the first year of operation before Atlas was disassembled, moved to the Nevada Test Site, and recommissioned. The experimental program resumed in July 2005.