Dynamic deformation of a solenoid wire due to internal magnetic pressure

Deformation of the wire used in the solenoidal windings of an inertially confined pulsed high magnetic field generator is potentially the limiting factor for the magnitude and duration of the magnetic field produced. The rising magnetic pressure at the wire surface can become large enough to cause the cross section of the wire to deform on a time scale shorter than overall solenoid disassembly time. This may result in short circuiting due to insulator breakage and/or physical contact of adjacent windings. An analytic approximation modeling the deformation dynamics is presented which takes into account both inertial and material yield strength effects. The model is validated by comparison to two dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the process by Numerex´s MS Windows version of AFRL´s MACH2. Cases where yield strength has a negligible effect on the deformation, and where yield strength is significant are considered.