Experimental Analysis of the Acceleration Region in Tungsten Wire Arrays

Author

Bott, Simon C. ; Mariscal, Derek ; Gunasekera, Kanchana ; Peebles, Jonathan ; Beg, Farhat N. ; Hammer, David A. ; Kusse, B.R. ; Greenly, J.B. ; Shelkovenko, T.A. ; Pikuz, S.A. ; Blesener, I.C. ; McBride, Ryan D. ; Douglass, J.D. ; Blesener, K.S. ; Knapp,

Author_Institution

Center for Energy Res., Univ. of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

Volume

40

Issue

12

fYear

2012

Firstpage

3324

Lastpage

3328

Abstract

We present the first analysis of the ablated plasma flow acceleration region in tungsten cylindrical wire arrays within 1 mm of the wire core. We apply a recently developed modification to the Lebedev rocket model to infer the 2-D distribution of effective velocities which redistribute the array mass as a function of time. From these data, it is possible to directly observe the acceleration region in a wire array. Analysis of radiography data from the 1-MA Cornell Beam Research Accelerator machine suggests a region of rapid acceleration extending up to 300 μm from the wire core in 16 wire tungsten arrays.

Keywords

plasma magnetohydrodynamics; tungsten; wires; 2-D distribution; Cornell Beam Research Accelerator machine; Lebedev rocket model; W; ablated plasma flow acceleration region; acceleration region; array mass redistribution; current 1 MA; magnetohydrodynamics; radiography data analysis; time function; tungsten cylindrical wire arrays; wire core; Arrays; Plasmas; Radiography; Tungsten; Wires; Precursor plasma; wire array $Z$ -pinch;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPS.2012.2213307

Filename

6294456