Investigation of electrical conductivity and equations of state of metals using different timescale underwater electrical wire explosion

Summary form only given. Underwater electrical explosion of copper, aluminum and tungsten wires was used to study transport parameters for a wide range of temperatures and densities. Experiments have been carried out using two pulsed generators operating in microsecond and nanosecond time scales. For microsecond timescale, a generator with stored energy of ~6kJ and ~1μs rise time of ~300kA maximal amplitude current was used. For nanosecond timescale, a ~0.5kJ water forming line generator was used to produce a ~60ns rise time pulse with current of ~60kA. Application of these high-current pulses resulted in fast phase transition of the exploding wires and formation of dense, non-ideal plasma. The plasma was characterized using electrical probes, fast framing and streak images. From the experiments and through 1-D MHD simulations, the electrical conductivity of the plasma was obtained for densities in the range of 0.01-20 g/cm³ and temperatures of 0-8 eV. The experimentally obtained conductivity is compared to conductivity calculated using different models describing the matter in the warm, dense state. In addition, the equations of state of the matter have been evaluated from experimental results and compared to equation of state data from SESAME tables.