Eur. Phys. J. D 54, 335-341 (2009)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2008-00258-0

Study of plasma parameter's distribution upon electrical wire explosion

¹ Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 9, Institutskii per., Dolgoprudny, 141700 Moscow Region, Russia
² P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospect 53, 119991 Moscow, Russia

Corresponding author: ^a svt@ihed.ras.ru

Received: 7 September 2008
Revised: 15 November 2008
Published online: 9 January 2009

Abstract

Experimental results on electrical explosion of wires in vacuum with current density  A/m², current rise rate (dI/dt) ~ 50 A/ns and current pulse with amplitude ∼10 kA are presented. The structure of the discharge channels in vacuum has been studied using laser shadow and schlieren imaging with 7 ns frames, UV pinhole images with 5 ns frames and X pinch X-ray backlighting. The information on the dense core material and the conducting plasma distributions was obtained in our experiments by analyzing and comparing the results obtained from all diagnostics.