A finite element study of a current-carrying pinch in a strong longitudinal magnetic field

Abstract

A linear finite element method has been applied to the analysis of the stability of a current carrying pinch in a strong magnetic field. The two cases of fixed and free boundaries are studied extensively for a wide range of values for the two parameters m and k. The growth rate of instabilities has been calculated numerically. It has been shown that the numerical results, for which corresponding analytical results are available, are in good agreement with them. There are, however, some new numerical results which are not confirmed analytically but represent the physics of the problem property.