Accelerating thick aluminum liners using pulsed powers

Abstract

The authors have investigated the acceleration of very thick cylindrical aluminum liners using the Pegasus II capacitor bank. These accelerated solid liners will be used to impact other objects at velocities below 1.5 km/sec, allowing them to generate and sustain shocks of a few 100 kilobar for a few microseconds. A cylindrical shell of 1100 series aluminum with an initial inner radius of 23.61 mm, an initial thickness of 3.0 mm, and a height of 20 mm, was accelerated using a current pulse of 7.15 MA peak current and a 7.4 microsecond quarter cycle time. The aluminum shell was imploded within confining copper glide planes with decreasing separation with an inward slope of 8 degrees. At impact with a cylindrical target of diameter 3-cm, the liner was moving at 1.4 km/sec and its thickness increased to 4.5 mm. Radial X-ray radiograms of the liner showed both the liner and the glide plane interface. The curvature of the inner surface of the liner was measured before impact with the 15-mm radius target. The radiograms also showed that the copper glide planes distorted as the liner radius decreased and that some axial stress is induced in the liner. The axial stresses did not affect the inner curvature significantly. Post-shot calculations of the liner behavior indicated that the thickness of the glide plane played a significant role in the distortion of the interface between the liner and the glide plane.