Composite liner, multi-megabar shock driver development

Summary form only given. A magnetically imploded, cylindrical, multi-layer liner is under development for use as an equation of state shock driver using energetic, pulsed-power sources. The stability and uniformity of the imploding liner has been investigated on the Pegasus pulsed-power facility at liner velocities of >7 mm/usec. Using a thick aluminum driver layer to carry the current and a platinum impactor layer to generate the shock on impact with a target, the expected platinum-on-platinum shock level is 6 to 8 Mbar for operation of the Pegasus capacitor bank at the maximum charge voltage of 90 kV. The initial liner design utilized 8 grams of aluminum with a 1 gram (12-micron thick) layer of platinum on the inside. The inner surface was observed with flash radiography oriented transversely to the axis of the collapsing liner, and with fiber-optic time-of-arrival detectors on the target. Short wavelength perturbations of the inner surface along the axial direction were observed with amplitudes between 200 to 400 microns. A second liner was evaluated with increased aluminum mass and thickness to avoid drive current penetration and the resulting melting and susceptibility to Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities.