Evaluation of magneto Rayleigh-Taylor mode growth using comparisons of 2D calculations with radiographic data

Experiments being conducted at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Pegasus facility are examining stability issues for driving an aluminum liner with a pulsed magnetic field. The Pegasus facility provides a current of 5 to 8 Megamperes to compress a cylindrical liner. Liners of various size and thickness are used, depending on the specific experimental objectives. In several of these experiments, the outer surface clearly develops perturbations in the mass distribution. These perturbations are strongest when the aluminum is suspected to have melted and in some cases partially vaporized. A series of specific experiments was designed to examine the growth rate of these instabilities. These experiments involved machining a sine wave onto the outer surface of the liner to seed a given wavelength. Two-dimensional MHD calculations, using the measured current profile, were performed to model the behavior of the liner under magnetic field compression. These predictions were made with a 2D Eulerian code complete with a Steinberg-Guinan strength model. The results of these calculations are discussed in this paper. The density contours at specific times are compared with the processed radiography.