Electrical Characteristics of Microsecond Electrical Explosion of Cu Wires in Air Under Various Parameters

Electrical explosion of wires has caused the attention of researchers because of its rich physical phenomena and plenty applications. Microsecond electrical explosion of Cu wires in air under various parameters is conducted, and diverse discharge waveforms are displayed and analyzed. By statistically summarizing the experimental results, experimental parameter selection suggestions for specific applications are given. In addition, the experimental results show that the average axial breakdown field strength is greatly changed with the breakdown time. It drops linearly from ~13 to ~3 kV/cm when breakdown time varies from 2 to $6~\mu \text{s}$ , it keeps at a relatively low value about 1 kV/cm when the breakdown occurred after $8~\mu \text{s}$ . The effect of current density on the rising edge of the resistivity curve is confirmed by the experimental results. Based on the correlation between the breakdown time and breakdown field strength and the correlation between the maximum current density and specific action when resistivity reaches 200 $\mu \Omega \cdot \text {cm}$ , the specific-action model is improved empirically. The proposed “two-stage” model better reflects the actual physical process and has higher accuracy and a wider scope of application.