The Electrical Specific Action to Melt of Structural Copper and Aluminum Alloys

Author

Vanderburg, Andrew ; Stefani, Francis ; Sitzman, Alex ; Crawford, Melba ; Surls, Dwayne ; Ling, Charles ; McDonald, John

Author_Institution

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophys., Cambridge, MA, USA

Volume

42

Issue

10

fYear

2014

fDate

Oct. 2014

Firstpage

3167

Lastpage

3172

Abstract

This paper describes an exploding wire experiment to measure the electrical specific action to melt of structural alloys of copper and aluminum, including C10100, C11000, C18000, C18200, Al6061, and Al7075. These alloys, which are commonly used in railguns and other pulsed power devices, are not produced in fine wire form. Instead of wires, we developed a technique to test macroscopic samples (0.25 mm × 0.5 mm cross section) manufactured with wire electrical discharge machining. This paper includes a description of the design considerations for such macroscopic exploding wire experiments.

Keywords

aluminium alloys; copper alloys; electrical discharge machining; Al6061; Al7075; C10100; C11000; C18000; C18200; design considerations; electrical specific action; fine wire form; macroscopic exploding wire experiments; macroscopic samples; pulsed power devices; railguns; structural aluminum alloy melting; structural copper alloy melting; wire electrical discharge machining; Copper; Current density; Heating; Rough surfaces; Surface roughness; Thermal expansion; Wires; Al6061; Al7075; C10100; C11000; C18000; C18200; aluminum alloy; electrical action to melt; exploding wire experiment; specific action to melt; specific action to melt.;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPS.2014.2313292

Filename

6784432