Implosion dynamics of multi-material wire-arrays on the S-300 pulsed power generator.

In this report, experiments on the S-300 pulsed power machine are presented on the current-driven implosion of wire arrays composed of different fractions of Al and W. Abrupt rebuilding of large-scale plasma structures during less than 10ns were observed in these experiments. In a series of experiments at the initial stage of the process inside the array shadow, some areas of transparency of the probing laser radiation appeared which may be explained as an effect of filamentation in the current-carrying plasma of the conductors (with tens-kiloampere scale electric current per a conductor). Al and mixed arrays, compared to W arrays, have more heterogeneous structure In the case of nested arrays, the effect of «pass» the outer liner, while imploding, through the inner one was first discovered on the base of X-ray spectral analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]