The First Pulsed-Power Z-Pinch Liner-On-Target Hydrodynamics Experiment Diagnosed with Proton Radiography

The first pulse-power driven, dynamic, liner-on-target experiment was successfully conducted at the Los Alamos proton radiography (pRad) facility. 100% data return was achieved on this experiment including a 21-image pRad movie. The experiment was driven with the PHELIX pulsed-power machine that utilizes a high-efficiency (k ~ 0.93) transformer to couple a small capacitor bank (U ~ 300 kJ) to a low inductance condensed-matter experimental load in a Z-pinch configuration. The current pulse (Ipea_k = 3.7 MA, δt ~10 μs) was measured via a fiber optic Faraday rotation diagnostic. The experimental load consisted of a cylindrical Al liner (6 cm diam, 3 cm tall, 0.8 mm thick) and a cylindrical Al target (3 cm diam, 3 cm tall, 0.1 mm thick) that was coated with a thin (0.1 mm) uniform layer of tungsten powder (1 micron diam). It is observed that the shock-launched powder layer fully detaches from the target into a spatially correlated, radially converging (v_r ~ 800 m/s) ring. The powder distribution is highly modulated in azimuth indicating particle interactions are significant. Results are compared to MHD simulations.

Work supported by United States-DOE under Contract DE-AC52-06NA25396.