Studies of Solid Liner Instability during Magnetic Implosion

A variety of potential applications exist for solid cylindrical liners driven by high-energy pulsed-power systems. These applications include studies of shock formation and propagation, equation of state, constituitive properties of materials under megabar pressures and high strain rates, and the production of megagauss magnetic fields through flux compression. These applications require well-characterized, reproducible behavior of the liners under strong acceleration by the J × B forces. We have conducted a series of experiments in which sinusoidal perturbations were machined on the outside edge of thick (400-600 μm) aluminum (Al-1100 alloy) liners. Our experiments have conclusively demonstrated that the initial perturbation wavelength remains the dominant scale length, even for amplitudes that are a factor of 5-10 greater than the initial liner thickness. Scale length mixing or evolution seems absent from liners in which strength is still present.