Implications of recent improvements in conductivity models on liner, wire, and fuse design

Summary form only given. The pulse power community is conducting numerous Z-pinch experiments to explore critical issues in both hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics. Adequately predicting the behavior of metals (i.e. copper, aluminum, tungsten, etc.) as intense current/fields are introduced is crucial for designing such experiments. Our simulations have used a variety of resistivity models including SESAME tables as well as analytic models. Most models to date were derived from approximate theory and adjusted to match available data. Results of our simulations have shown that the behavior of aluminum, for example, in the region from a 0.1 to 0.5 eV and densities from about 0.2 to 3.0 g/cc is not reproduced well and impacts our ability to accurately predict high performance liners, exploding wires, and fuses using our MHD simulation codes. Recent examination of improve conductivity models from Desjarlais at SNL suggests that the nature of conductivity in these low/intermediate temperatures and near normal densities may be a significant problem. This was demonstrated by calculations of high current (>30 MA) driven liner experiments which showed inaccuracies in the employed conductivity in this region can lead to 10-20 % discrepancies in predicting the liner velocity at impact. This inferred problem with conductivity models is endemic to all three of the discussed cases, since any solid/liquid surface heated ohmically into a plasma state must traverse this region in phase space. This paper will attempt to compare simulations of liners, wires and fuses using a variety of conductivity models against a limited set of actual experiments.